#15 - Tony: Few anarchists have ever performed violent

[lsat2016]

Could you explain what “incompatible evidence” means? Does this mean a counterexample?

Also, I understand that basing a conclusion on contradictory premises is a false, but what does it mean when two people are talking and one of the answer choices says “speaker B provides an argument/assumption that is incompatible with B”? I’m not sure what the exact definition of “incompatible” means in the LSAT context.
Thank you!

[Clay Cooper]

Hi Lsat2016,

Thanks for your question.

'Incompatible' does not mean a counterexample. Specifically, 'incompatible evidence' means evidence that cannot be true if a particular claim is true (and vice versa). For instance, if a piece of evidence (let's call it E) is incompatible with a claim (let's call it C) then it cannot be the case that both are true.

For example, let's say I'm claiming that the population of hippogriffs in England increased last year. If someone were able to provide evidence that more hippogriffs died than were born in or brought into England last year, that evidence would be incompatible with my claim: in other words, it cannot be the case that both are true.

By contrast, if that person were only to provide evidence that hippogriff birthrates were unusually low last year, that evidence might make it seem unlikely that my claim (that the population increased last year) is true; but it is still possible that both my claim and the evidence are true.

Does that clarify it?

[Johnclem]

Hello ,
can you please see my approach for this question and help me understand why B is wrong ? Her is how understood B:

B) I chose this because Keisha points out the frequency of these violent acts being committed . "Anarch's has always been " "other political ideologies often " I thought this brings on evidnece or a factor overlooked by Tony. If the few Anarch's has been always committing violent acts but the other political groups only often then they may be committing more violent acts .

Tony:
1) few anarch has ever performed violent actions.
2) these few are outnumbered by violent political ideologies .
C: the special association in the public mind between anarchism and political violence is unwarranted.

Keisha :
1) Anarch has ALWAYS been few in number number
2) other ideologies have OFTEN spawned mass movements .
C: therefore the proportion of anarch who are violent is possibly greater than the propertion of adherents of other ideologies who are violent .


Thanks
John

[Adam Tyson]

Hey John, thanks for the question. Keisha does indeed bring in new evidence that Tony had not considered, but that evidence is not in any way incompatible with Tony's evidence. That is, it doesn't contradict his evidence, even though he may have overlooked it. Rather, it puts Tony's evidence into perspective by letting us know that, while the absolute number of violent anarchists may be low, it may be large relative to the total number of anarchists, and that the number of violent members of other groups may be low relative to the number of people in those groups. Nothing incompatible here - Keisha's evidence and Tony's evidence are completely in sync with each other. Keisha is just shedding new light on what Tony said.

See Clay's explanation for what incompatible evidence looks like, and see if that makes sense to you.

Keep up the good work!

[Coleman]

I got the answer right because I dissected the structure of the passage successfully, but I'm curious about the way Tony proceeds with his reasoning.

FEW anarchists have EVER performed violent actions.
These few are VASTLY OUTNUMBERED by the violent adherents of other political ideologies.
Conclusion: The special ASSOCIATION between anarchism and political violence is unwarranted.

I don't understand why he concludes the special association between anarchism and political violence is UNWARRANTED. For me, this conclusion is very questionable especially after he states those few anarchists who performed violence are significantly outnumbered by the violent adherents of other ideologies. It definitely sounds more like there is a connection or at least a correlation between being an anarchist and political violence.
Could you clarify what is the gist of Tony's argument?

[Adam Tyson]

Tony is saying that not many anarchists are violent, and that there are a lot more violent non-anarchists. Therefore, Tony concludes, it's wrong for people to think that anarchism and violence go together. Tony is saying that anarchists have a reputation for being violent that is undeserved because there are more violent non-anarchists than there are violent anarchists.

The problem, as Keisha correctly points out, is that his argument is based on numbers without a proper consideration of percentages. Maybe there are only 6 violent anarchists and 600 violent others , but perhaps those 6 violent anarchists make up 75% of all anarchists while the 600 violent others make up only 1% of the people who make up those other groups. If that were the case, it would be perfectly reasonable to associate violence with anarchism!