LSAT 135 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q4

LR Question 4 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Panelist: Medical research articles cited in popular newspapers …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Researchers are influenced by publicity when deciding which studies are important.

REASONING: Medical research cites studies that have been covered in newspapers and magazines more often than studies that haven’t been covered.

ANALYSIS: The panelist observes a correlation: Articles that receive popular media coverage are cited more often by later researchers.

Then they conclude: Researchers are being swayed by publicity.

But there’s another perfectly plausible explanation. Maybe newspapers and magazines tend to choose the most important medical research to cover in the first place.

If that’s true, we’d expect those articles to be cited more often even if researchers completely ignored the publicity.

The publicity wouldn’t be causing the citations. It would simply be tracking articles that were already especially important.

Think of this: Movies that win Oscars usually make more money afterward. So, audiences only watch movies because they won Oscars.

Maybe. But maybe the movies that win Oscars are simply better movies, so people would’ve watched them anyway.

The panelist mistakes publicity for the cause without considering that publicity may simply identify research that was already more important.

___________

1. The panelist never discusses opposing arguments or tries to refute anyone else’s position.
2. CORRECT. This is exactly the alternative explanation. It simply shows that important articles both receive publicity and receive citations. Correlation doesn’t establish causation.
3. The argument never says anything about famous scientists.
4. Even if newspapers cover only a tiny fraction of medical studies, that doesn’t affect the reasoning. The flaw isn’t about how many articles are covered. It’s about which articles are covered.
5. This is saying the author uses circular reasoning, but that doesn’t happen here. The conclusion goes well beyond the premise. The premise is about citation rates. The conclusion is about the psychology of researchers and what influences their judgments.