#14 - Physician: In order to investigate diseases

[NeverMissing]

This question introduces conditional logic in order to explain when medical research should be permitted. I believe we would diagram it like this:

                                                                                Likely to reveal info about a medical condition
Medical Research Permitted and
                                                                                Known to pose a minimal risk to subjects

Therefore, in order to justify the argument that the researcher's study should be prohibited, we merely need to show that one of the necessary conditions has not been met, which in turn negates the sufficient, making the medical research not permitted.

Doesn't answer choice D fulfill this requirement by negating the necessary condition that the research must be likely to reveal info about a medical condition? If hormonal imbalances are not a medical condition, they aren't able to reveal any important info about a medical condition.

[AthenaDalton]

Hi NeverMissing,

Great question!

Even if the hormonal imbalances themselves do not constitute a medical condition, the diseases caused by those imbalances would likely qualify. Such research could be justified if it would reveal important information about those diseases with minimal risk to the study's participants.

I hope that makes sense. Good luck studying!

[pasu1223]

Hello,

I'm confused on this question as well.

I think I understand why E is correct in that if the long term effects of the treatment are not known then the Physician's condition that the treatments are "known to only pose a minimal risk" is failed, but I do not see how we are supposed to equate medical condition and disease.

Does anyone have any suggestions for when the LSAT uses a term if it falls under the umbrella of another term? How are we supposed to know that medical conditions and diseases are not completely separate things?

Thanks!

[AthenaDalton]

Hi pasu,

We actually don't need to know that "medical condition" and "disease" are equivalent to solve this one. There are two conditions that must be met in order to go forward with medical research: (1) the study will reveal important information about a medical condition and (2) the research is known to pose only a minimal risk of harm. If either of these conditions are not met, the study should not go forward

Since we are told in the stimulus that the researchers don't know whether the harm will be minimal or not, we can confirm -- without more -- that the research should not go forward.

As far as how to know if "medical condition" and "disease" overlap -- there isn't a hard and fast rule to figure this one out, but it's ok to use common sense in making a very small inferential leap. Even if you just narrowed the answer choices down to (D) and (E), you could choose between them by favoring answer choice (E) since it doesn't require any inferential leaps to be correct.

I hope this helps clarify things. Good luck studying!

[pasu1223]

That makes a lot of sense about choosing between the two answer choices, thank you for the help!

Patrick

[nlittle]

Hi NeverMissing,

Great question!

Even if the hormonal imbalances themselves do not constitute a medical condition, the diseases caused by those imbalances would likely qualify. Such research could be justified if it would reveal important information about those diseases with minimal risk to the study's participants.

I hope that makes sense. Good luck studying!

Just to highlight a point that I think confused me at first, which may still confuse people:

It's pretty subtle shell game, but if we check (D) against the first premise that was given it is more clear why it is incorrect.

The premise states that researchers are investigating "diseases caused by hormonal imbalances".
Answer choice (D) states that "the imbalances themselves do not constitute a medical condition".

Since the answer choice does not address the effect of the hormonal imbalance, rather it addresses the imbalances themselves, it does not fail a necessary condition and the conclusion is not justified.

Not sure who all this may apply to, but my attention tends to sometimes focus on the SN condition, if presented in a stimulus, which makes a shell game a prime trap for an incorrect answer if I fail to pay close enough attention to the other premises that contextualize it after reviewing answer choices as those subtle details tend to be lost, the more removed I am from them.