Q4 - Marianna: The problem of drunk driving

[cnguye15]

Hi,
I got the correct answer, which is D but I want someone to confirm that my logic is right.
Initially, after I read David's response I had a sense that his discussion was irrelevant to Marinna's conclusion that more measures to prevent drinking problems are needed. The premise
talks about the high possibility drunk driving causes death and injuries, whereas David make a comparison on the survivability of a sober and drunk driver. When I went through all the answer choices, only D made sense. I didn't see any self-contradiction, circular reasoning. Nor David contradicts Marina conclusion or employs ad-hominem.

[ohthatpatrick]

David is saying "Drunk driving is okay because a drunk driver is actually slightly LESS likely to be injured in an accident than a sober driver."

Well that's great, David. We all feel better knowing that the drunk driver doesn't sustain the worst possible injuries in an accident.

What about the sober drivers/pedestrians that got hit by the drunk driver? Are they also better off with the drunk driver behind the wheel vs. a sober driver?

Even if you take collateral damage out of the discussion, David's argument isn't addressing Marianna's last point.

Marianna:
You're more likely to drive into the side of a Dunkin Donuts if you're drunk than if you're sober.

David:
Ah, yes, but IF you drive into the side of a Dunkin Donuts, you'll sustain slightly less injury if you're drunk.

How would Marianna respond?

She'd probably say, "That doesn't make drunk driving safer! Sober people are almost never going to drive into the side of a DD, so the comparison between a sober driver and a drunk driver doing so is beside the point."

LSAT loves to test this distinction:
- likelihood of getting INTO an accident
vs.
- likelihood of getting hurt IF you get into an accident

I know there's some question arguing that heavier cars are safer because IF you get into an accident, you're less likely to sustain injuries.

How do we weaken that? We show that smaller cars are much less likely to get into an accident in the first place.

Nice call with all the other answer choices:
(A) No self-contradiction (almost never a correct answer)
(B) Not circular (almost never a correct answer)
(C) M's conclusion is "additional measures are nevertheless needed". D doesn't contradict that and he also DOES provide evidence.
(D) Correct ... M is talking about probability of getting into an injury-causing accident / D is talking about probability of getting injured IF you're in an accident.
(E) Not attacking the person.

[oscey12]

Hi, I was able to get this one right, but I got tripped up on C. I'm curious as to what constitutes "evidence." It seems like the speaker in any stimulus could make any claim. What does it look like when someone offers no evidence?

[WaltGrace1983]

Hi, I was able to get this one right, but I got tripped up on C. I'm curious as to what constitutes "evidence." It seems like the speaker in any stimulus could make any claim. What does it look like when someone offers no evidence?

I am not a guru but when I think about this kind of answer choice I think about it as if the person gives *no basis* for the conclusion made. DO NOTE that I said *no basis,* not no *rational* basis. The reality is that all flawed arguments are irrational to some extent, so don't confuse bad evidence with no evidence at all.

An "argument" with no evidence might look like this: "You're wrong. I know it." There is no justification for the statement "You're wrong."

However, this is very different from what is going on here. In this argument, we DO get evidence. The evidence just doesn't lead to the conclusion (as with nearly all LSAT arguments).

[uhdang]

Hi, I was able to get this one right, but I got tripped up on C. I'm curious as to what constitutes "evidence." It seems like the speaker in any stimulus could make any claim. What does it look like when someone offers no evidence?

I am not a guru but when I think about this kind of answer choice I think about it as if the person gives *no basis* for the conclusion made. DO NOTE that I said *no basis,* not no *rational* basis. The reality is that all flawed arguments are irrational to some extent, so don't confuse bad evidence with no evidence at all.

An "argument" with no evidence might look like this: "You're wrong. I know it." There is no justification for the statement "You're wrong."

However, this is very different from what is going on here. In this argument, we DO get evidence. The evidence just doesn't lead to the conclusion (as with nearly all LSAT arguments).

Hm.. Does David provide evidence in this case? I don't think the second sentence of his could be considered evidence. When I was going though this answer choice, I had a similar thought with oscey21. Although this is an incorrect choice because David does not "contradict Mariann'a conclusion" at all by missing a scope, what if he WERE arguing the right scope and he didn't give the evidence? Would it still be okay? Following WaltGrace1983's point (good point distinguishing "bad" evidence with "no" evidence btw), it wouldn't be providing "bad" evidence, but it would be an argument with "no" evidence. Until now, I've never seen any questions brought to our attention because of "no" evidence issue. So, how does it work here?

[ohthatpatrick]

David's conclusion
"drunk driving isn't as dangerous as you claim"
why?
"because drunk drivers are actually LESS LIKELY to be injured in an accident than sober drivers".

That is definitely a premise, i.e. evidence.

You might be wondering where David heard that finding. Is he making it up? Is this a well documented phenomenon?

Either way, it's evidence. It's a premise.

(by the way, this IS a true phenomenon. Supposedly when you're drunk you "go with the fall" a little bit more and that somehow results in less injury. It must be something like how professional stunt people learn to roll into a fall so that it doesn't hurt as much)

An argument with no evidence has a name: Circular Reasoning.

The flaw answer choices that describe a Circular argument sound like this:
- assumes what it sets out to proves
- presupposes what it seeks to establish
- the conclusion is a mere restatement of the premise

These are correct 1 out of 100 times. The VAST majority of times you see it, it's wrong (as you were suspecting).

Circular arguments sound really dumb:
"Chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream. After all, other flavors aren't as good as chocolate."

For David's argument to sound like this, it would have been:
"I think you exaggerate the dangers of driving while drunk. After all, drunk driving is safer than what you claim."

Hey, look, answer choice (B) is this flaw!

That would kinda cancel out (B) and (C), since they essentially describe the same thing (although you're right to think that (C) adds an additional problem in terms of whether David really CONTRADICTED Marianna).

Hope this helps.

[uhdang]

Thanks, Patrick.

So, regardless of whether it is stated as factual information or not, if it is a premise, should I consider it as evidence?
Hm.. as it's not the case in the real life, I supposed this is LSAT-way of thinking?

Having thought this far, I just searched a dictionary and a definition of "evidence" comes out as such:

n. information given personally, drawn from a document, or in the form of material objects, tending or used to establish facts in a legal investigation or admissible as testimony in court: without evidence, they can't bring a charge.

Since "evidence" includes information given personally and in this case David DOES give this drunk driving information personally ("go with the flow" attitude while drunk gets you injured less lol), so it satisfies a definition of "evidence." So, it not only LSAT-way but a real life definition to consider personally given information as evidence such like David's. Wow, new aspect of "evidence" acquired.

Particularly, though, in conclusion, are you saying all premises are evidence?

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

That's correct: all premises are evidence.

Evidence DOES come in "soft" and "hard" forms.

Soft evidence is more like hearsay, conjecture, eyewitness testimony. It's stuff people think/sense/remember/believe, but they may be suffering from confusion/illusion.

Hard evidence is more quantitative, empirical, measurable.

Those labels don't mean anything super important to LSAT / law, but in general you can attack the credibility of soft evidence more than you can that of hard evidence.

Of course, in the LSAT world, it's very rare for them to attack the credibility of evidence at all. The reasoning game WE are playing is almost always, "Accept the premise as fact but STILL find a way to dispute the truth of the conclusion."

[roflcoptersoisoi]

I got this question correct through PoE, but how is point David is arguing against completely unrelated to Marianna's?

Marianna's point: Additional measures to address the issue of drunk driving are still needed

David's conclusion: You're overstating the problem of drunk driving.

It seems to me that David is arguing against Marianna's point.