LSAT 129 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q4

LR Question 4 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Professor: A guest speaker recently delivered a talk

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Universities don’t encourage fair minded, tolerant debate.

REASONING: A speaker was insulted at a university, once.

ANALYSIS: This argument has inadequate evidence. It makes a claim about universities in general based on one incident.

If this type of taunting happened during every well-researched speech, then maybe we could conclude that universities are hostile to ideas. But we only have evidence about one incident, so we can’t make a general conclusion.

Also, universities are broader than speeches. It’s possible that universities foster an intellectual atmosphere in many ways even if speeches are difficult.

___________

1. The professor’s opinion is valid. An observer can look at what happened and fairly say “this was wrong”. We don’t need to rely on majority opinion to form judgements.
2. There’s no inconsistency. The professor didn’t say the students’ views were wrong. She merely criticized the way the students expressed them. It’s generally considered rude to heckle a speaker with taunts.
3. Don’t pick an answer like this unless you can say what emotion was appealed to.
   Example of flaw: We shouldn’t allow self driving cars. They might make a mistake and kill us. I’m frightened of them.
   (Appeals to fear, rather than discussing relative risks of self-driving vs. human driven cars. All cars can make a mistake.)
4. CORRECT. The professor is making a conclusion about all universities, but only gives evidence of one incident at a single university. That’s hardly representative evidence.
5. Nonsense. It’s perfectly acceptable to say that certain behavior is unacceptable regardless of reasons. Actions can matter more than intentions.