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Medical research findings are customarily not made public

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Medical research findings are customarily not made public

by pnk » Tue May 18, 2010 7:14 pm
Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research.
The argument assumes that
(A) unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur
(B) anyone who does not serve on medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research finding
(C) the general public does not have access to the medical journals in which research findings are published
(D) all medical research findings are subjected to prepublication peer review
(E) peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial

[spoiler]why is B & C wrong; OA A[/spoiler]
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by bupbebeo » Tue May 18, 2010 7:41 pm
pnk wrote:Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research.
The argument assumes that
(A) unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur
(B) anyone who does not serve on medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research finding
(C) the general public does not have access to the medical journals in which research findings are published
(D) all medical research findings are subjected to prepublication peer review
(E) peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial

[spoiler]why is B & C wrong; OA A[/spoiler]

Assumption is unstated premises, without it, the conclusion cannot be valid.

A is correct because without A, conclusion cannot be valid. let me say more

the argument concludes that waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research.

if we don't have A, it means that peer review still happen even medical research findings are not brought to medical journal. Therefore, why we need until a medical journal publish to see the results of peer review. So, A is correct

we can do as I have just do. without B, C, whether conclusion can still be right. I am sure that without B,C, conclusion can be still right. That's why B, C are not correct.
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by pnk » Tue May 18, 2010 8:12 pm
Thanks.

Conern with B: it assumes that any one not on medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research finding. It means since the normal public is not on panel so they are not competent.

Negate: If the normal public has the necessary skills/knowledge they can judge the benefits of research on their own and if they can judge on their own, the argument that the peer review is the only way falls - means weaken the argument..so can be the answer.

Pls correct me.
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by gtvisa2002 » Wed May 19, 2010 9:30 am
pnk wrote:Thanks.

Conern with B: it assumes that any one not on medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research finding. It means since the normal public is not on panel so they are not competent.

Negate: If the normal public has the necessary skills/knowledge they can judge the benefits of research on their own and if they can judge on their own, the argument that the peer review is the only way falls - means weaken the argument..so can be the answer.

Pls correct me.
Well thats a good question.

Apparently, you shouldn't infer something from the answer and negate, in your case that's what happened.
Logic of Negation should only be applied to the answer.

That is, for B the negation would result in
No one who does not serve on medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research finding which doesn't affect the conclusion inversly rather helps it.

HTH. Thanks
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by nonameee » Thu Dec 15, 2011 4:28 am
Can I please ask someone to explain why (B) is wrong?

Here's my reasoning with (B):

What if there were another institution (besides the review panel) that possessed the necessary knowledge to review the findings and that would be much more time efficient? Then the conclusion of the argument that it is necessary to wait for the journal to post the findings reviewed by the panel would be weakened as the second (and arguable better) alternative to review the findings would exist.

Please explain.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Dec 15, 2011 9:17 am
Received a PM on this one:

This is, no surprise, another LSAT question. This one is from October of 1993 and is from the first Logical Reasoning section question # 25.

For this assumption question we are supporting the conclusion that "Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research."

Now the premise that supports this conclusion is that "prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous...information from reaching the public."

So basically the argument is saying that because peer review is needed -- therefore we have to wait for a medical journal to publish the research findings. Remember that the premise must be true and the conclusion is the thing that we are supporting here.

SO - if it were true (as stated in choice A) that the ONLY way to get peer review is through the medical journal we would have a good conclusion here. This is the assumption. It bridges the gap between the premise and the conclusion.

Assumption Negation

One way to evaluate the answer choice is to negate that choice and see what happens. If we negate choice A (the correct answer) we see that it becomes "EVEN IF medical research findings are NOT brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review MAY STILL occur" -- Portions in capitals are what I changed to create the negation. This is the proper negation of this statement. So you see that with the negated answer the conclusion is harmed. If it is true that peer review may still occur even without the medical journals then the conclusion is not necessarily true.

What about choice B?
Nonameee wrote:
Here's my reasoning with (B):

What if there were another institution (besides the review panel) that possessed the necessary knowledge to review the findings and that would be much more time efficient? Then the conclusion of the argument that it is necessary to wait for the journal to post the findings reviewed by the panel would be weakened as the second (and arguable better) alternative to review the findings would exist.
Choice (B) actually says "anyone who does not serve on A medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research findings"

I am not sure how we go from this to what is quoted from nonameee above. The person who typed this originally ("pnk") missed the word "a" as in "does not serve on A medical review panel" and so it may have appeared that there is only one review panel. This is not true. Basically B is saying that "ONLY those on the various medical review panels have the necessary knowledge to evaluate the findings." If you negate B then you realize that it only says, "Someone who is not on a medical review panel may still have enough knowledge to evaluate the findings." Well that does not harm the conclusion, in fact it says very little. Certainly it could be true that there are some people with medical knowledge who do not happen to be on a panel and yet it still might be necessary to wait for the medical journal in order to protect the general public.

When you work with an answer choice be sure to only work with what it says.

Critical reasoning is like math, except instead of numbers you have words. People seem comfortable with the fact that actual numbers matter; well actual words matter, too!
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by nonameee » Fri Dec 16, 2011 5:23 am
David, thank you for your reply. (B) is now clear. But I still have some reservations regarding (A):

From the stimulus we know that (and we must consider the following points as must be true since they are stated premises):

1) Research findings are made public by medical journals (and no other way exists to make them public)
2) Medical journals initiate a peer review
3) Peer review is the only way to protect public

Conclusion:

Therefore, we must wait for journals to publish the findings reviewed by some panel to protect the public from using harmful medication or procedures.

OK.

Now, let's negate (A):

Medical journals will not initiate a medical review by peers, but the review will still take place (perhaps by some commercial organization). But we still have to wait for medical journals to publish the findings because as we know from the first premise it is the only way the public gets to know about the findings. So negating (A) does not weaken the conclusion.

Could you please explain what's wrong this reasoning?
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat Dec 17, 2011 7:35 pm
premises must be taken as true - but only as written.

Your point 1 is beyond what is said in the stimulus:
1) Research findings are made public by medical journals (and no other way exists to make them public)
Where in the stimulus does it say this? What it says is "Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review."

Do you see the difference? The medical journals "customarily" publish the findings but this does not mean it is the only way to make them public. Instead it is the way that is used now to make them public. And if choice A is included in the argument NOW the medical journal is the only way to get the peer review. Remember it is the peer review that is the key to this argument b/c as you say in point 3 the peer review is the way to protect the public (that part is true).

What you have done is to put premises and conclusions into your own words which seems like a good way to understand them, but you really must be very careful as the argument relies on what is exactly said in the stimulus.

Hope it helps!
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by nonameee » Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:20 am
David, thanks a lot for you reply! I understand now where I made the mistake. Everything's clear now.
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by [email protected] » Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:27 am
Option C is just making things difficult for us. Initially C seems to be the best answer. Because in the stimulus, it is not written that the research journal in which the finding is published is not passed to the public. But it is just given that the medical journal is first sent for pre-review.

At first this seems to be a option C answer... But A is correct... took some time...

Thanks David
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by vishal.pathak » Fri Mar 23, 2012 1:54 pm
pnk wrote:Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research.
The argument assumes that
(A) unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur
(B) anyone who does not serve on medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research finding
(C) the general public does not have access to the medical journals in which research findings are published
(D) all medical research findings are subjected to prepublication peer review
(E) peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial
What is wrong with D??
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