September 2009 LSAT Section 1 Question 11

Recent studies indicate a correlation between damage to human chromosome number six and adult schizophrenia. We know,...

avif on May 12, 2020

Whats wrong with E

During the test I limited the answers down to A and E. I ended up picking E. I don't understand what is wrong with that choice. I do understand that because of choice A there still may be causation between the correlation which is therefor a mistake in the argument. Yet, doesn't the author make another mistake which is answer E that perhaps these things are highly correlated without there needed for these things to have a causal relationship? In arguing with the study that there is no causation doesn't he assume that the study was saying that there existed some causation?

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shunhe on May 13, 2020

Hi @avif,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at what the argument is telling us. There’s been a study indicating a correlation between damage to chromosome 6 and adult schizophrenia. But some people who don’t have damage have adult schizophrenia and some people with damage don’t have adult schizophrenia. Thus, the author concludes that there’s no causal connection.

So now we’re asked to find a reasoning flaw in the argument above. And the answer here is going to be (A) because there doesn’t need to be a perfect link between “damage” and schizophrenia; there may be different kinds of damage, some of which cause it, and some of which don’t.

Now (E), on the other hand, is actually basically the opposite of what the author is presuming. Remember, the author is saying that even though this correlation exists, there is no causation. So it’s definitely not the case that a weakness of the author is that she presumes that correlation implies causation, since that’s not at all what she’s trying to say.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.