LSAT 112 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q25

LR Question 25 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Anthropologist: All music is based on a few main…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Diatonic music is popular only because of how the human brain is wired.

REASONING: Diatonic scales have dominated world music. If the popularity of a scale were based on social conditioning then we would expect diversity.

ANALYSIS: The conclusion is very strong. It says that social conditioning plays no role in our preference for diatonic scales.

That goes way too far. The argument provides some evidence that innate dispositions affect our liking of diatonic scales, but it didn’t prove that we are unaffected by social conditioning.

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1. “Some” people could mean 3 people out of 6 billion. It’s a very vague and often useless term.
2. The argument doesn’t have to explain this, because it’s arguing that innate dispositions explain the popularity of diatonic music.
3. The argument doesn’t have to explain why scales exist. It just has to explain why we all seem to prefer diatonic scales.
4. CORRECT. The conclusion stated that social conditioning played no part. That’s a pretty strong conclusion. The argument only has good evidence that innate dispositions played some role.
5. Animals are not obviously relevant to why humans appreciate diatonic music. If animals showed a strong preference then we might want to investigate, but the argument isn’t obliged to consider animals.