October 1997 LSAT Section 2 Question 18

Columnist: The advent of television helps to explain why the growth in homicide rates in urban areas began signifi...

AndrewArabie on April 1, 2023

I have major problems with this question

When reading the stimulus I noticed they did not attribute violent programming to a rise in crime, just the presence of television sets. I ruled out most of the wrong answers on those grounds but also ruled out the correct one. The reason given for ruling out many incorrect answers was because the incorrect ACs were attributing the rise in violence to violent programming and the explanation correctly pointed out that there's no indication violent programming is relevant but for some reason the correct answer mentions violent programming. We don't know if there were any portrayals of violence on TV at the time so without knowing that we can't select the correct answer choice. I selected E because if more people are watching TV then there's an increase in leisure time and if leisure time causes an increase in violence then that would strengthen the stimulus.

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Emil-Kunkin on April 9, 2023

Hi, I think the main issue here is that we have no idea if there is a connection between violent tv and actual violence. While this isn't the only flaw (as you noted the author never actually explicitly states that there was violent programming, and that people were watching it), the main problem is that the author is arguing that X caused Y from the premise that X and Y happened at roughly the same time.

The right answer strengthens by showing that Y didn't cause X. This makes it more likely that X indeed caused Y, although it does not prove it at all. As strengthening goes, this is a relatively weak strengthener. It doesn't prove the argument right, but it does rebut one potential counterargument.