LSAT 152 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q21

LR Question 21 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Farmer: Farming with artificial fertilizers, though more …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Organic farming must not spread any further if enough food is to be produced.

REASONING: If all farmers adopted organic farming, there wouldn’t be enough food for everyone.

ANALYSIS: The evidence only tells us there is a problem if all farmers switched to organic farming. But the conclusion says organic farming cannot expand at all. That’s much stronger.

What if organic farming continued spreading, but not all farmers used it? According to the reasoning, there wouldn’t be an issue.

The argument ignores the possibility that organic farming could spread further without reaching the point where food production becomes inadequate.

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1. It says artificial fertilizers are more damaging, but there’s no claim that they’re only “slightly” more damaging.
2. CORRECT. The reasoning only presents a problem if ALL farmers adopt organic farming. So the argument is unjustified in jumping from “all farmers can’t do this” to “there can’t be any further spread.”
3. Historical possibilities do not undermine the argument about feeding Earth’s growing present population.
4. This is saying that food shortage may also happen in other ways. The author never claimed that stopping organic farming is the only way to ensure enough food is produced.
5. This introduces a competing concern, but the author never claimed that other concerns don’t exist. It’s just a claim about food availability.