A group of scientists who have done research on the health effects of food irradiation has discovered Support no evidence challenging its safety. ██████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ ██ ███████ █████ ████ ████ ███████████ ██ █ ████ █████████
Just because a certain claim lacks evidence doesn’t mean it’s false. For decades, there were no scientific studies proving the link between smoking and lung cancer. Doesn’t mean there was no link, though.
That could be what’s happening in this stimulus. Scientists haven’t (yet) found evidence that irradiating food is unsafe. That doesn’t mean it’s for sure safe, though.
This flaw is common enough that you should aspire to recognize it by name when it appears, and to recognize also the common phrasings the LSAT uses to point to it in the answer choices.
A flaw in the reasoning ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ██ ████ ████
assume that the ██████████ █████ ███ ████████ ███ ███ ██ █████ ████ ████ ███████████ ██ ██ ██████ ████████
The food irradiators make no assumptions about the scientists’ motives in conducting their experiments.
(A) would match a stimulus where the scientists did find evidence to challenge irradiation’s safety, and then the irradiators dismissed that evidence because of suspected bias.
are motivated by █ ██████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ██ ████
(B) accuses the irradiators of being biased, which they are. Just having biased motivations isn’t a dealbreaker, though, as long as you support your position with facts.
In other words, the irradiators’ bias doesn’t affect the strength of their position.
overlook the possibility ████ ██████████ █████ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ████ ████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████
This would be relevant if the argument were about whether irradiating food is good or advisable all things considered. But this argument is about the narrow issue of safety, so other non-safety considerations aren’t relevant.
neglect to provide ████████ ███████████ █████ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████
This kind of answer choice is seldom (never?) correct on the LSAT. Complaining about a lack of detail just isn’t the kind of thing that’s usually relevant on this test about logical structure and argument forms.
Regardless of the level of detail they provided, the real trouble with the irradiators’ logic is the leap from “you don’t have evidence irradiation is unsafe” to “irradiation is for sure safe.”
use the lack ██ ████████ █████████████ █ █████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███ ████ █████
(E) presents textbook phrasing for when the LSAT points to the “lack of support v. false conclusion” common flaw. It says “you didn’t prove me wrong, so I must be right.” We could also have seen “you didn’t prove yourself right, so you must be wrong.”
Answer five questions and we'll estimate your score.
It takes about five minutes.
Take the free diagnostic