LSAT 134 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q13

LR Question 13 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Some paleontologists believe that certain species of dinosaurs …

QUESTION TYPE: Complete the Argument

ANALYSIS: The paleontologists’ reasoning is:

Carefully designed nests → long-term parental care

The author responds by saying not so fast. Crocodiles build similar nests, but they don’t guard their young for very long.

So the author is not trying to prove that hadrosaurs didn’t guard their young. Instead, they’re attacking the evidence used by the paleontologists.

The author shows that the same evidence is consistent with both long-term care and short-term care. So the nests alone are weak evidence for the paleontologists’ conclusion.

___________

1. It’s too strong to say they have no evidence. The author only criticizes one piece of evidence (the nests). There could be other things supporting the paleontologists’ view.
2. The argument doesn’t claim we’ll never know how long hadrosaurs cared for their young. It only suggests this particular evidence isn’t very convincing.
3. The crocodile example doesn’t prove that hadrosaurs behaved like crocodiles. It only shows that building these kinds of nests doesn’t necessarily imply long-term parental care.
4. There’s no attempt or discussion of generalizing from hadrosaurs to other dinosaurs. The argument only discusses what nests tell us about hadrosaurs.
5. CORRECT. Since similar nests are built by crocodiles that don’t guard their young for long, the nests aren’t strong evidence that hadrosaurs did guard their young for long. The argument weakens the strength of the evidence, not the paleontologists’ conclusion itself.