LSAT 35, Logical Reasoning I, Q8, LSATHacks

QUESTION TEXT: Lobsters and other crustaceans eaten by humans…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken 

CONCLUSION: The proposal to stop putting sewage into the harbor is pointless.

REASONING: Lobsters (eaten by humans) get gill disease when sewage is dumped in their water. But most lobsters don’t live long enough to be harmed by the disease. 

ANALYSIS: This is one of the worst arguments I’ve seen on the LSAT, but it’s also very clever. So clever that many people don’t even see what’s wrong with it. The lobsters aren’t harmed, so what’s the issue, they ask?

Would you like to eat lobster contaminated by sewage and that have gill disease? 

Just because the lobsters aren’t harmed doesn’t meant that there is no point to preventing gill disease. We eat them! Blech. 

Further, the conclusion is really, really broad: the proposal is pointless. But the only evidence is about lobsters. There might be some benefit to cleaning the harbor, apart from healthier lobster. Maybe some fish will get less sick, maybe we can swim in the harbor, maybe the town will smell better, etc. There could be many other benefits that show the proposal is not “pointless.”

___________

1. The proposal was only talking about redirecting sewage. Other contaminants are irrelevant since no one was proposing to clean them up.
2. That’s nice. But we don’t know why lobsters live longer in oceans and we have no evidence that it is due to lack of sewage. 
3. This would strengthen the argument. Sewage doesn’t seem to harm lobster breeding.
4. This doesn’t really affect anything since the lobsters don’t get sick from the gill disease.
5. CORRECT. This gives us a good reason to prevent gill disease: we get sick if we eat polluted lobster. So the proposal has a point: it could make us healthier.

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