LSAT 146 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q10

LR Question 10 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Anthropologist: In an experiment, two groups of…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: Neanderthals could have made their complex tools without language.

REASONING: Student groups recreated one Neanderthal tool. The group that didn’t use language was as successful as the group that did.

ANALYSIS: There are two problems with this argument:

1. It’s possible the researchers picked a simple tool. Maybe more complex Neanderthal tools would require language.
2. The instructors didn’t use language when teaching how to make the tool. But it’s possible they required language in order to plan how to teach without words.

The correct answer uses the first flaw.

___________

1. The point isn’t whether Neanderthals did have language. It’s whether they needed language to make their tools. 
2. This strengthens the argument that language was unnecessary. It shows the non-language group was able to construct the tools even though they couldn’t talk. 
3. CORRECT. This weakens the argument. Maybe language is required for the more complicated tools, even if it wasn’t required for the simpler tools the students built.
4. This strengthens the argument. The non-language instructor was worse, and yet the students still succeeded in making the tools without language.
5. This has no effect on the argument. The argument is only about whether Neanderthal tool construction was possible without language. Comparisons to other groups are irrelevant: either Neanderthal tools were too complex, or they weren’t.
    
   If I told you that Neanderthal tools are less complex than modern tools (they were!), does that affect the argument? Of course not.