Logical reasoning PrepTest 112 · Section 3 · Question 25

Flawed

Errors in Reasoning Questions

Background - There are a few main types of scales, and society’s are pretty diverse. If nature determined music preference, there’d be a mix of preference for diatonic and nondiatonic scales.

Phenomenon - Diatonic scales have always been dominant in most of the world’s mustic

Explanation - Nature completely determines what music we like

Before we even dive into the logic of this argument, we should discuss a topic that frequently shows up on the exam and the answer that’s usually associated with it. That topic? Nature vs. Nurture. Here, the argument debates whether “social conditioning” (i.e., nurture) or “innate dispositions of the human mind” (i.e., nature) determine musical preference. When an argument wades into this debate, the correct answer usually brings up that both nature and nurture probably contribute to whatever phenomenon it’s discussing. Here, the conclusion stating that it’s “only” nature that contributes backs this up - the argument is likely flawed because it fails to consider that nature could play a large role, but there’s still room for nurture to have an effect.

Now, let’s dive into the argument itself.

The Anthropologist dives into some background about the world’s music, stating that there’s a diversity of societies making music based on diatonic and nondiatonic scales, but the former are much more popular. If this popularity were based on social conditioning, we’d expect the popularity to be more mixed based on the aforementioned diversity of societies (i.e., societies that nurture people in different ways). Since there isn’t such a mix of popularity, the Anthropologist concludes that the popularity of the diatonic scales can be explained by nature - innate dispositions of human minds.

Whenever an argument concludes an explanation for a phenomenon, we should consider alternative explanations. And when the argument brings one up, we should consider whether that explanation was fully ruled out or if it could still be valid.

Here, the Anthropologist does establish that nurture can’t fully explain the preference for diatonic music, since if it did control our musical preferences, there’d be more of a mix. However, that doesn’t mean it plays no role in our preferences for music. As such, let’s find an answer pointing out that the argument determines that something plays no role when it has established only that it doesn’t play a determinative or complete role.