LSAT 106 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q22

LR Question 22 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Researcher: The role of chemicals called pheromones in…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: Pheromones no longer affect humans’ sexual behavior.

REASONING: Pheromones clearly control animal sexual behavior at an automatic, chemical level. But free will allows humans to take sexual decisions at a psychological level.

ANALYSIS: This is quite a bad argument. There’s no proof that pheromones can’t influence psychological decisions.

___________

1. This is far too broad to be necessary. Planetary motion doesn’t have a chemical explanation, so therefore it must have a psychological explanation, according to this assumption.
2. CORRECT. If voluntary action is influenced by chemicals, then pheromones could influence the actions we take according to our free will.
3. The researcher never said that only humans are unaffected by pheromones. There may be other animals with free will.
4. The researcher never said why our actions are voluntary. Our free will is only important because it may make us immune to pheromones.
5. The researcher said psychology controls our sexuality. They never connected psychology with pheromones, and they never tried to explain why we still have pheromones.