PT28.S1.Q09 - political commentators see recent policies

emli1000emli1000 Alum Member Inactive ⭐
edited January 2016 in Logical Reasoning 3462 karma
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-28-section-1-question-09/
For this question I chose AC (C) but I circled this question because AC (E) got my attention. During BR I did not change my answer because (C) was still the flaw in the argument. So could someone explain how AC (E) is wrong? I'm not sure if it's because it's speaking about how most people disagree with the commentators, therefore, it makes it false...so since they believe it to be false it has to be false? That why it's incorrect?

Comments

  • c.janson35c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐
    2398 karma
    Basically the argument is saying that the policies are not appeasement because of the fact that most people disagree with the commentators, which is why C is correct because it talks about this flaw.

    I think E is incorrect because the argument does not commit the part to whole flaw that it is referencing. I would argue that the argument does not talk about people individually (because we just know what most of the people in the country think) and so there's no way we could extrapolate this information to some broader characteristic. Also it doesn't make sense to say what is true of the people individually is true of the country as a whole, because the information we have about most of the people is what their beliefs are, and it wouldn't make sense to assign these beliefs to the country as a whole. Even if you argue that you could though, the "public opinion as proof of truth/falsity of a statement" flaw would still exist, just with a larger sample (the amorphous "country" as opposed to most people).

    For E to be correct, the flaw would have to be something like "each person in one of the states in the country thinks the commentators are wrong, so the country as a whole thinks the commentators are wrong." Really, this flaw is about concrete characteristics, though, and would make most sense in this context: "each person in the country is old, therefore the country must be really old".

    Hope this helps!
  • NYC12345NYC12345 Alum Inactive Sage
    1654 karma
    @c.janson35 hit the nail on the head. The flaw is that the political commentator's claims are false because people BELIEVE them to be false, which can not be properly concluded. Widespread opinion does not equate to the truth.
  • emli1000emli1000 Alum Member Inactive ⭐
    3462 karma
    @c.janson35 @alexandergreene93 Thanks!
  • nye8870nye8870 Alum ⭐
    1749 karma
    The view being "fundamentally mistaken" is quite a strong assertion based on "most people disagreeing" (with the view).
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