LSAT 31, Logical Reasoning II, Q1, LSATHacks

LR Question 1 Explanation, by LSATHacks

QUESTION TEXT: Journalist: One reason many people believe in…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: ESP is a myth and the public is deluded by these experiments.

REASONING: The public believes in ESP because they have heard of controlled experiments that demonstrate ESP. But a prominent researcher has admitted to falsifying data on psychic phenomena in order to get more grants. 

ANALYSIS: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Rumsfeld said it, and he was 100% right. We may have zero evidence that ESP exists. But that is not the same thing as having evidence that ESP doesn’t exist. 

A further problem is that the argument hasn’t even shown that all of the ESP controlled experiments have been falsified. In fact, we don’t even know if this prominent researcher did experiments on ESP or only on other psychic phenomena. 

___________

1. If a scientist has falsified data then it is very relevant to point that out. Some personal attacks are relevant. 
2. The argument does a bit better than this. It presents evidence that data was falsified.
3. This sounds tempting, but the journalist doesn’t make this mistake. The public only believes in ESP because of experiments. Therefore it makes sense to attack those if you’re disproving ESP.
4. The journalist has only said that this particular prominent scientist is unreliable. 
5. CORRECT. The journalist implies that because one researcher falsified data then therefore all data on ESP must be false. 

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