Q4 - Panelist: Medical research articles

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Flaw

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: Researcher judge the importance of prior research by the publicity the research received, not the research's true importance.
Evidence: The articles that get publicized in news/mags are more likely to be cited by researchers.

Any prephrase?
If we were simply trying to argue that researchers "DO judge previous research by its true importance", how would we address the fact that "stuff that gets publicized is more likely to be cited by researchers then stuff that doesn't get cited". We might say, "Umm ... is it possible that it's getting cited BECAUSE it's important?"

Correct answer:
B

Answer choice analysis:
A) There are no counterarguments presented.

B) Looks good. We judge "fails to consider" by asking, "Would this weaken?" YES! If news/mags do a good job of selecting the most important stuff, then we can argue that researchers ARE judging the studies they cite on true importance, at least partially.

C) We judge "takes for granted" by asking "Did the author need to assume this?" No. First of all "content" of research is a very different concept then "importance" of research. And the author never said / suggested that the fame or notoriety of scientists had anything to do with how research gets into a news/mag.

D) Would this weaken? No. It even feels a bit like a strengthener. If news/mags can only review a tiny % of available research, it's unlikely that they are doing what (B) suggests: finding the most important research.

E) This refers to Circular Reasoning, which is almost always a wrong answer. The conclusion is not a restatement of the premise. They are very different claims.

Takeaway/Pattern: We might also see the correlation language in the premise, "Things that are X are more likely than others to be Y", and gotten ready for a causal conclusion and heard the implicit "X causes Y" in the author's conclusion. For those arguments, we anticipate OTHER ways to interpret/explain the same correlation. One popular alternate intepretation is REVERSE CAUSALITY. In this case, we can't go there because we know that being citied "subsequently" was the 2nd thing. The other popular alternate intepretation is that the correlation is really a symptom of some THIRD FACTOR. Here, (B) is saying that the "getting cited in popular news/mags" and "getting cited in later research" are both just symptoms of the underlying causal factor of a piece of research being TRULY IMPORTANT.

#officialexplanation

[tzyc]

Just wanted to double check why (C) is incorrect...
Is it because it kind of just repeats the conclusion?
Thanks.

[timmydoeslsat]

Just wanted to double check why (C) is incorrect...
Is it because it kind of just repeats the conclusion?
Thanks.

(C) is different than the conclusion. The problem with (C) is that the idea of the popular press is really far removed from the actual argument.

The only thing we care about in regards to the popular press is that these guys are citing medical research articles. We do not know the reason for this. This argument presumes that really good science is not occurring in these articles. So pointing out a failed consideration or stating that the argument assumes something is not occurring will accomplish the same task.

The force of the argument is going from a correlation to a cause. We have an occurrence of medical research articles being cited in the popular press. These articles are more likely to be cited in later research.

Why are these articles being cited in later research? We do not know. It could be a multitude of things. The argument, however concludes, the popular press covering these articles is the reason for the later research. Couldn't there be a causal factor that caused both the press attention and the research attention?

So with (C), the argument does not need to assume anything about the motives of why the press is citing these articles other than that it is not due to good science. This answer choice states an assumption that is not necessary for this argument. It is way too specific.

Edit: I wanted to be clear on a certain point.

[Vivi]

Could anyone clarify what E is saying and why E is out? Perhaps share an example that is true of "a conclusion is logically equivalent to its premise"? Thanks a lot!

[magic.imango]

Could anyone clarify what E is saying and why E is out? Perhaps share an example that is true of "a conclusion is logically equivalent to its premise"? Thanks a lot!

I believe that (E) is saying that the argument is circular. The stimulus however is not circular because the premise is distinct from the conclusion; the problem with the argument is that the premise doesn't necessarily lead to that conclusion.

A circular argument would be something like:
Only dogs bark. Therefore if it barks, then it is a dog.

Diagrammed the above flawed argument should read as:
Premise: B --> D
Conclusion: B --> D

Can a moderator or another user chime in? I hope I haven't fudged this...

[maryadkins]

Our core is:

medical research that appears in magazines is more likely to be cited in later medical research

-->

researchers care about publicity more than research's true importance

But what if it shows up in the magazines BECAUSE it's important? That's what (B) says.

Great description of (E), thanks. Yes, that would describe circular reasoning—not a common correct answer on the LSAT.

As for the other incorrect answers:

(C) makes it about "eminence of scientists" which isn't actually what we're talking about, anyway. The argument doesn't assume that.

It also doesn't assume (D), that the magazines can only review a few articles. Maybe the magazines review TONS of articles...but they could still be the ones that get unwarranted citations.

(A) is irrelevant.