Page 1 of 1
can you infer a necessary condition from "almost invariably"
Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 11:25 am
by sangr
so im just wondering if
A "almost invariably" leads to B
can you call that causation, or necessary/sufficient
Re: can you infer a necessary condition from "almost invariably"
Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 11:30 am
by StrictlyLiable
Seems possible. "invariably" alone seems better though.
Re: can you infer a necessary condition from "almost invariably"
Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 12:47 am
by youknowryan
sangr wrote:so im just wondering if
A "almost invariably" leads to B
can you call that causation, or necessary/sufficient
almost invariably = most, which is numerically 51% to 100%. It therefore cannot be any of the above.
invariably = all and will allow for the above.
Re: can you infer a necessary condition from "almost invariably"
Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 12:55 am
by dakatz
Almost invariably does not denote 100%. Something is only necessary when it follows 100% of the time.
"A sugar rush is almost invariably followed by a crash"
Does this mean that a crash will always follow a sugar rush? No, so the argument isn't deductive. Remember that the LSAT is very specific about these things and those are the types of mixups they expect people to make.
Re: can you infer a necessary condition from "almost invariably"
Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 1:58 am
by blhblahblah
In the scientific world, when two variables co-occur at a frequency that meets an acceptable threshold, it can be said that when one occurs the other will occur (controlling of course for third variables, directionality, etc.).
However, for purposes of LSAT, anything less than always is only correlation
Re: can you infer a necessary condition from "almost invariably"
Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 2:17 am
by whymeohgodno
It's very simple.
No.