June 2007 LSAT Section 2 Question 21

Driver: My friends say I will one day have an accident because I drive my sports car recklessly. But I have done som...

Curator on February 27, 2020

Answer D is not wrong

I disagree with A being the correct answer. He thinks recklessly driving his sports car is the condition necessary to result in a crash. He makes a partial alteration by changing vehicles so that the condition necessary is no longer met believing this will allow him to avoid the unwanted outcome. But the issue is that the reckless driving of his sports car is only a condition sufficient for resulting in the unwanted outcome. If he wants to avoid the outcome he needs to change his driving behavior not the vehicle.

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Ravi on February 27, 2020

@Curator,

Let's take a look at (D) and (A).

In looking at this argument, the friends are not complaining because
the driver drives a sports car; rather, they're complaining because
he's a reckless driver. And although minivans have a lower rate of
accidents, that could be the case because of who is driving them, not
because of any sort of safety features they have that other cars don't
have. Thus, the flaw in this argument is mistaking correlation for
causation; minivans have lower rates of accidents, and the driver
makes the assumption that that is because they're minivans. In other
words, the driver falsely concludes that minivans reduce accident
rate.

(D) says, "mistakes a condition sufficient for bringing about a result
for a condition necessary for doing so"

The problem with (D) is that there isn't any conditional logic in this
argument. The flaw in the argument is mistaking correlation for
causation, so there is no conditional fallacy in this argument.

(A) says, "infers a cause from a mere correlation"

(A) looks great, as we know that minivans correlate with a lower rate
of accidents, and the author thinks that driving a minivan will make
him less likely to be in an accident. Thus, (A) is the correct answer
choice.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!