The dating website OkCupid recently released the results of a shocking new study. It turns out that people who own iPhones have had more sexual partners than people who own other smart phones.

As expected, this groundbreaking scientific breakthrough has convinced many to conclude that an inferior cell phone is the root of their sexual misfortunes. Yahoo summed it up best, when they claimed, “I guess this accessory really helps your game.”

(Disclaimer: I actually own an iPhone and I would really like to believe that my smart phone will increase my appeal to members of the opposite sex, but my LSAT-centered mind is once again holding me back.)

Before you run out to the nearest Apple store, I would urge you to read the following analysis. You see, this article grabbed my attention because it is a classic example of two very common logical fallacies: causation and sampling.

The first part of the study focused on 30 year-olds. It turns out that men who own an iPhone have had an average of 10 sexual partners, and women have had a whopping 12.3. Blackberry users have an average of 8.1 (men) and 8.8 (women) notches on their bedpost. And apparently Android users have about as much luck with the opposite sex as Snooki. Men with Androids have an average of 6 partners and women are just ahead of them with 6.1.

The first conclusion is obvious: women have left men in the dust. What’s up with that? Guys, it’s time to stop playing with your new app and go talk to a girl.

The second conclusion is more problematic. Does this evidence actually prove, as many have reported, that the iPhone increases your game? Is that hot guy or girl going home with you because of you, or is it just the bulge in your pocket?

Unfortunately, drawing the conclusion that the phone is responsible would be unwarranted. One of the most common fallacies on the LSAT involves confusing a correlation with causation. Even though iPhone owners have more sexual partners, this does not actually prove that the phone is the cause for the good luck in the bedroom.

Why?

First, the causal relationship could actually be reversed. Maybe people who have already racked up a lot of sexual partners are more likely to buy an iPhone (it can be complicated to keep track of all of those names and numbers).

Second, there could be alternate causes. Maybe people who use an iPhone are getting laid for other reasons. As you probably know by now, you can tell a lot about a person by their choice of smart phone. If you meet a guy that owns an Android, he probably has his own special character in World of Warcraft and he probably brags about the amount of RAM in his computer. If you meet someone with a Blackberry, she is invariably a lawyer or investment banker and rarely, if ever, is allowed to leave her office. A person with an iPhone is likely to be either (1) an artist or (2) unemployed. IPhone owners, thus, have more free time and this could actually be why they are getting lucky more often.

The second big fallacy in this case has to do with the actual study. 30 year-olds might not be representative of other age groups. Maybe a gal at 30 with an iPhone is very attractive, yet a 60 year-old or a 19 year-old with an iPhone might have little or no luck with the boys. In order to investigate the hypothesis that iPhones actually do increase one’s game, it would be necessary to use a sample group that spans different ages, geographic locations, lifestyles, and social classes.

There are many morals to this story. First, don’t confuse correlation with causation. Second, it is problematic to base general conclusions on samples that could be unrepresentative. And finally, Steve Jobs gets laid because of his bank account, not his iPhone.

Now a challenge for you. There is actually a third flaw that I have not mentioned. Question for you: why might it also be a problem to draw the conclusion that iPhone users are more likely to have more sexual partners based on the survey results mentioned?

For some students, this decision brings sleepless nights and lots of overeating. A bad LSAT score is not a great thing to have on your record. Not as bad as a conviction for international espionage or anything, but not great.

Let me first take a moment to sympathize with the difficult predicament that is the decision about whether to cancel your score.

You have to decide whether you like your score or not before you ever see it.

The analogies abound to illustrate why this is a tough call to make. It would be very dangerous if the coach of a team had to pick his players before he ever sees the tryouts. You could end up drafting a fine physical specimen like this. Can you imagine if you had to make decisions about your dating life before you actually met the suspects in question? You could end up spending your tender years with this guy. Yikes.

And the LSAT tends to be accompanied by slightly more stress than most other decisions that one needs to make.

If you are still trying to make a decision, we do have some resources to help you. First is a video with an exercise designed to help you predict your final score and Trent wrote a post about how schools view multiple scores and cancellations.

I generally tell my students that there are three major factors to weigh:

1. When do you want to go to law school?

As you are probably aware, law schools admit students on a rolling basis. That means that students start to hear back from schools as early as the fall. If you cancel your February score and retake the LSAT in June, you will be delaying entering law school for an academic year.

If you are not planning to apply this year, then you have plenty of time to take the LSAT again.

2. Have you taken it before?

Law schools give everybody a mulligan. But you really only get one. If you have cancelled before, then you should be a little more reticent to cancel again. But it is still probably better than having a low score on your record. If you do have more than one cancellation, a good explanation for them, and a higher LSAT score, then that’s probably not going to hurt you in your applications.

3. What is going to change?

If you want to perform better on a later LSAT, something has to change. Maybe you will have more time to study? That could help. Maybe you think you will be better able to handle the stress of the test? Also a good thing.

But if you don’t have the time or energy to do anything different, then it might be good to just keep your February score.

So I just wanted to give you a reminder that the date is here. Missing the deadline is never a good feeling.

Good luck with the decision. We hope everyone who took the February LSAT is enjoying the return to sanity now that the test is over.

Originally posted December 10th, 2009

But they don’t talk about sports. Well, not much, at least.

And I think I might know why. There are certain issues in sports that I believe can poke holes in the reasoning used on the LSAT.

For example, let’s discuss the NFL playoffs. There are four more games coming up this weekend. On Saturday, the Cardinals go to New Orleans to try to upset the Saints (-7) and the Ravens will try to injure Peyton Manning before he inevitably mounts a comeback to beat them in the 4th quarter (-6½). On Sunday, the Cowboys travel to Minnesota to deal with the ageless Favre (-2½) and the Jets bring their impressive defense and fat coach to sunny San Diego to deal with the Chargers (-7) and LT (who has apparently lost his mind and his rhythm).

As I was reading through the various articles on the upcoming games, I couldn’t help but pick up on a trend in every report. Sports commentators base their arguments on a method of reasoning that is clearly fallacious on the LSAT. They commit temporal fallacies like they are going out of style.

• “History says one or two road ‘dogs will pull off divisional-round upsets.” (Sportsline)
• “This is Ken Whisenhunt’s time of the season, with the Cards’ head coach 4-0 in the NFC playoffs.” (Clark Judge)
• “(The Cardinals) hammered a 12-4 Panthers team on the road in the divisional round last season.” (ESPN)
• “The Jets seem to be H-O-T, H-O-T, H-O-T. They just blew out the Bengals…” (Bill Simmons)

If you have lived in our sports-crazed nation for more than a couple hours, you have undoubtedly heard statements like the above. Granted, these claims are at least attempting to base a conclusion on some body of evidence. This naturally makes them more convincing than some other platitudes that are thrown around in sports (“I was just feeling it,” “we just take it one game at a time,” “we played with a lot of heart,” “he has great intangibles”).

However, the LSAT constantly warns against the use of such temporal arguments. In the legal world, evidence of prior acts is commonly excluded from trials because it is deemed to be irrelevant to the issues at hand.

But where is the line? If Kurt Warner went 29-of-33 with 5 touchdowns last week, is that a reasonable basis for concluding that the Cardinals are more likely to beat the Saints this week? If Brett Favre started to look his age (72, I believe) down the stretch of the regular season, does that imply that the Cowboys have a better chance for an upset?

Here is an LSAT question that can be used for comparison:

Executive: Our next environmental proposal will likely be approved, because normally about half of the environmental proposals that the prime minister reviews are approved, and our last five environmental proposals have all been rejected.

The argument’s reasoning is flawed because

So the basic argument here is that we are going to win on this proposal because we lost on the last five. This is a Flaw question. The LSAT (and, by extension, the legal profession) clearly must believe that this is an invalid argument. The answer choice states that this argument makes the unsupported assumption that having the last five proposals turned down affects the chances for the current proposal.

It is notable that the answer choice does not say that the argument draws too strong of a conclusion, but rather the answer states that it is a mistake to conclude that the past has any effect at all on the current proposal.

Now, if this were the wide world of sports, the argument should conclude that the current proposal will have the same fate as the earlier proposals (continue the hot streak). Many commentators are concluding that the Colts are going to win this weekend because they have won in the past and Peyton was the league MVP this season. But the point remains the same. The evidence about the past is supposed to be irrelevant to the present circumstances.

But where is the line?

Anyone who has played sports will agree that there is some relationship between the past and the present. It sounds like crazy-talk, but many of us have entered the proverbial “zone” in which we feel unstoppable. The baseball moves slower, the hoop appears to be the size of a small lake, and the ducks seem to be flying much slower (for all of you in the red states).

But it would seem that you have to be very careful about what type of evidence can be used to forecast into the future. It occurs to me that there are two requirements that must be in order to use the past to make predictions about the future:

1. The situations need to be similar in form and time.
2. The issue in question must be something that translates in time from one event to the next.

First, you have to make reasonable comparisons. This is where sports really sways off course. If I have to hear one more time about stats dating back to 1960, I am going to hurt myself. Did you know that the Cowboys are only 2-7 against the Vikings in the playoffs? Of course this stat is all-time. Most of the players on the two teams were not even born when these games were played. And I am supposed to believe that this has some effect on their performance this weekend?

Decades ago definitely doesn’t matter, last year doesn’t even really matter.

The second issue is equally important. If you flipped a coin and it ended up heads five times in a row, does that mean the next one will be heads? No, because those occurrences are not related. We have all been burned by this fallacy in Vegas and the damned game of roulette. Five blacks in a row? Bet big on red; lose big on red.

However, if a concert pianist plays four flawless performances in a row, does that mean that she is more likely to play well in performance number five? I would say yes. It surely does not guarantee it, but that evidence seems highly relevant.

The pianist seems to be a much better analogy to sports than flipping a coin. So there would seem to be some situations in sports that violate the temporal fallacies that abound on the LSAT. But as long as you follow the two rules outlined above, you should be just fine.

While I am on the topic, here are my picks for the weekend. The Saints will beat the Cardinals 134 – 96 in the highest scoring game ever. Peyton will lead a fouth-quarter comeback, win, and then film 18 commercials simultaneously. The Chargers will finally make it so that I don’t have to watch the Jets and Dirty Sanchez anymore.

And my upset pick: Cowboys over Vikings. I mean, come on, Tony Romo has been so hot lately.

Thousands of anxious LSAT students awoke this morning with a frightening email in their Inbox. Subject: Your December 2009 LSAT Score. After a brief panic attack and some inspirational videos, many students have not yet summoned the courage to actually open said email.

But once you have, you can join the big topic of conversation… the curve.

The curve for the December LSAT is the most lenient in recent LSAT history. I had predicted that the curve would be forgiving, but this curve is easier than a sorority girl/boy on Halloween. Take a look:

Normally a student can miss 10 questions to get a 170. In December, missing 14 questions earned you that honor. Typically you can miss about 24 questions to get a 160, but the test allowed you to bubble incorrectly on 28 questions in December and still receive a 160.

It is important to understand that this is a curve. These numbers do not mean that a higher percentage of test takers got those lovely scores this time around. The numbers simply mean that you had a little more wiggle room to get those top scores. There are various theories about why the curve has lightened up this year, but I am sticking to my original theory.

The initial report is that the Logical Reasoning was abnormally difficult and this also could have had a significant effect on the curve.

We hope that everyone is getting great news in that Inbox and would love to hear your thoughts about the curve and your LSAT score.

For some students, this decision brings sleepless nights and lots of overeating. A bad LSAT score is not a great thing to have on your record. Not as bad as a conviction for international espionage or anything, but not great.

Let me first take a moment to sympathize with the difficult predicament that is the decision about whether to cancel your score.

You have to decide whether you like your score or not before you ever see it.

The analogies abound to illustrate why this is a tough call to make. It would be very dangerous if the coach of a team had to pick his players before he ever sees the tryouts. You could end up drafting a fine physical specimen like this. Can you imagine if you had to make decisions about your dating life before you actually met the suspects in question? You could end up spending your tender years with this guy. Yikes.

And the LSAT tends to be accompanied by slightly more stress than most other decisions that one needs to make.

If you are still trying to make a decision, we do have some resources to help you. First is a video with an exercise designed to help you predict your final score and Trent recently wrote a post about how schools view multiple scores and cancellations.

I generally tell my students that there are three major factors to weigh:

1. When do you want to go to law school?

As you are probably aware, law schools admit students on a rolling basis. That means that students are already starting to hear back from schools. If you cancel your December score and retake the LSAT in February, this will necessitate a delay in your applications.

If you are not planning to apply this year, then you have plenty of time to take the LSAT again.

2. Have you taken it before?

Law schools give everybody a mulligan. But you really only get one. If you have cancelled before, then you should be a little more reticent to cancel again. But it is still probably better than having a low score on your record. If you do have more than one cancellation, a good explanation for them, and a higher LSAT score, then that’s probably not going to hurt you in your applications.

3. What is going to change?

If you want to perform better on a later LSAT, something has to change. Maybe you will have more time to study? That could help. Maybe you think you will be better able to handle the stress of the test? Also a good thing.

But if you don’t have the time or energy to do anything different, then it might be good to just keep your December score.

So I just wanted to give you a reminder that the date is here. Missing the deadline is never a good feeling.

Good luck with the decision. We hope everyone who took the December LSAT is enjoying the return to sanity now that the test is over.

A couple of days ago, I came across this whole mess with Rush Limbaugh. The infamous, conservative political commentator is part of an investment group that is vying to purchase the St. Louis Rams, an NFL franchise. (Actually, I am not even sure that the Rams qualify as a CFL franchise with their play this year.)

Since the news broke, there has been a ton of news coverage and not everyone is a fan of Limbaugh joining the ranks of NFL ownership. A number of other NFL owners have spoken out against Limbaugh and the head of the players union has made it clear that the players are not in favor. Limbaugh, however, has recently stated that he is not going to exit quietly.

Here is the problem with Mr. Limbaugh. Various incidents in the past have led to some people painting him as a bit of a racist. And, well, the NFL has a lot of black players. And by a lot, I mean pretty much all of them, aside from a few corn-fed boys from Iowa (oh, and the damn Manning brothers).

Most specifically, Limbaugh made a pointed comment about Donovan McNabb back in 2003 while working for ESPN’s Sunday Night Football: “I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.” Not cool.

It has also been claimed in transcripts that Limbaugh made the following comment in 2007: “The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.” Even less cool. Limbaugh claims this quote is fabricated.

These comments are the basis for much of the opposition to Limbaugh’s bid to purchase an NFL franchise. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently spoke out on the issue. Without clearly stating that he did not want to see Limbaugh in an ownership position, Goodell stated that the league is held to a “higher standard” and that he would not want to see such “divisive comments” from someone involved in the league. Pretty clear which way he is leaning.

So that got me thinking. But when I start thinking, I normally start thinking about the LSAT. So here is the question:

If the opposition to Rush Limbaugh’s ownership bid were given as an LSAT question, would they have a valid objection?

Now, before I tell you my answer, and before anyone gets upset with me, let me make a few things very clear:

1.      I really dislike Rush Limbaugh.
2.      I really like the NFL.
3.      If I were an owner of an NFL team, I would never vote for him to become a co-owner.

However, part of the LSAT is putting all of these biases aside. So here I go. Basically the argument goes like this:

Rush Limbaugh has made various comments in the past of a racial nature that have offended a large number of people, including NFL players. The NFL is an organization that, like it or not, has a large role in shaping the lives of the youth of America. Through the comments that he has made, Limbaugh has shown himself to be racially insensitive. Also, several owners and players have voiced their objections to his bid. Thus, he is unsuitable to own an NFL franchise.

Drum roll please…. Does that constitute a valid argument?

I have bad news for the NFL. On the LSAT, this is a terribly flawed argument. I can spot at least five fallacies that are committed in the argument above.

1.      Ad hominem

When you want to defeat someone’s argument on the LSAT, you have to attack the argument. If you want to falsify a theory, you have to go straight after the theory. There are no sneak attacks allowed. You can’t bring up a person’s sexual indiscretions, joke about their mom, or remind people that they once lied to a police officer as a teenager. Here, the real issue is whether Rush Limbaugh is qualified to be an owner of an NFL franchise. The relevant issues would revolve around his knowledge of the sport and business acumen. Unfortunately, the incendiary comments that he made do not fit into either of these categories.

2.      Basing a conclusion on what people say

“You look great in that dress.”
“I swear, he is just a friend and we were checking out the scenery.”
“I just got tested.”

Sorry to bring back a slew of bad memories, but we have all been burned by statements like these in the past. Well, the LSAT does not let you make that mistake. Basing a conclusion on what people say or claim is a big fallacy. Politicians lie, friends don’t follow through, and family members cannot be trusted on this exam. So here, while we might have rather compelling evidence that Limbaugh made certain statements, that is not adequate proof that he actually believes those things to be true. When he was a commentator on ESPN, he could have made the statement about Donovan McNabb solely to stir up controversy. Not likely, but a fallacy nonetheless.

3.      Small sample size #1

We have all said a couple stupid things in life. Just take a moment to consider what a soundtrack of your life might sound like if you were followed around all day. Not pretty. Lots of famous people have said really stupid things, but we cannot jump to conclusions based on a few, isolated instances.

“The internet is a great way to get on the net.” —Bob Dole
“I go out with friends, but I don’t have time to get in trouble.” —Britney Spears
“Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points they almost always win.” —Doug Collins

You see, everyone can slip up from time to time. So making the jump from the premise that Limbaugh has made a few racially insensitive comments to the conclusion that he is racially insensitive is a definite fallacy on the LSAT.

4.      Sample size #2

As of now, all we know is that “several” owners and players have voiced an opposition to Limbaugh. However, this does not give us an adequate basis to determine how the league as a whole feels about the issue. It could be the case that many owners and players support Limbaugh (although I wouldn’t bet on it) or perhaps they just do not care either way. And this is clearly a sample that could be biased. Just because Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco tend to voice their opinion the loudest, that does not mean that it deserves more weight than other opinions.

5.      Temporal

The final issue here is a temporal one. You see, people have this frustrating tendency to change their mind. A few years back, Michael Vick was a rising star in the NFL and very popular with fans, even those with pets. A few years back, the Rams were actually a good football team, starring the likes of Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk. But things change. And people can change too. Your girlfriend might learn that the middle of Sportscenter is not the best time for a conversation. Or your boyfriend might learn to put the damn toilet seat down. On the LSAT, what was true in the past need not be true now and definitely no indication of what will be true in the future. So even if Limbaugh really was sincere in expressing those comments years ago, that does not necessarily imply that he feels that way now.

It pains me to write some of these things, but this illustrates one of the tricks of the LSAT. In everyday life, I believe the vast majority of people believe that there is more than ample evidence to veto Limbaugh’s bid. But on the LSAT, common sense can be your enemy.

Update: this morning, Limbaugh was dropped from the ownership group to buy the Rams. Rumor has it that Britney Spears was thrilled.

After much speculation by those of us in the LSAT world, LSAC has just recently released the numbers for the June LSAT.

Before I give it away, here is some background. The June test is generally a good indicator for the volume of test takers that we can expect for the testing cycle. Although it is not a perfect correlation, the number of LSAT takers is also an indicator of how many applications can be expected in the next cycle. So the June 2009 test likely tells us how many students will be taking the LSAT in September and December, and the number of students that take the LSAT this year is related to how many wanna-be-lawyers will be applying to law school this fall.

In 2007, 25,103 people took the June LSAT. This number bumped up to 28,939 in 2008. That was a 15.3% increase and the world was in a tizzy. And then the economy decided to take a dive. Everyone was expecting a year for the record books. But that did not really come to fruition. The October test saw only a 1.9% increase from 2007 to 2008, and the December test saw a 3.3% increase. So everyone took a deep breath. All told, the number of LSATs administered in 2008 was up 6.4% in 2008 to a cool 151,400. In addition, the number of law school applicants in the fall of 2008 remained nearly the same as in preceding years.

Then came 2009 and the economy was really in the crapper. And people were really starting to feel it. Would this be the year when law school admissions would skyrocket?

Well, we just got our first real indication.

LSAC just reported that there were 32,500 test takers for the June 2009 LSAT.

That is the highest amount for a June administration, ever. If you crunch the numbers, that is a 12.3% increase over the 28,939 test takers in June 2008.

WOW! Panicked students everywhere proclaim that this is going to be a record-breaking year. There might be over a million people taking the September test. The curve is going to be brutal; you might have to get every question right to get a 157! And don’t even get started talking about admissions for next year. There is no way that anyone is getting in anywhere. A 160 might get you into some ABA-approved school in South Dakota that no one has every head of, but any legitimate school is going to be looking for Kennedy descendents and 4.4 GPAs. Crap!

In general, this is the type of hysteria that results from such announcements. There are even certain “law school experts” who are predicting very competitive law school admissions based on the high number of test takers.

I don’t buy it. At least not completely.

People are forgetting about a few things, but they are forgetting about one very major thing. There was an important change in the LSAC regarding the LSAT this year.

Beginning this year (with the June 2009 exam, no less), students were given much less flexibility in postponing their test date. Until this year, students could postpone their LSAT until the day of the test. You could even do it after the test started. That’s right, you could wake up sick, nervous, or in need of a Baywatch marathon, go online to LSAC, and tell them that you were just going to take it later. This meant that many students who felt they were not ready would postpone their test date very shortly before the big show. No longer.

Now students have to inform LSAC weeks before the test date if they wish to change their testing administration. For the upcoming September 26 LSAT, the deadline to postpone is September 6. It is very difficult for students to assess whether or not they should postpone their test date three weeks before game day. For students in prep classes, they have likely not taken all of their practice tests and significant improvement can take place in the 20 days before the test.

I believe that this change of rules is also responsible for part of the increase in the number of test takers. Just from personal experience, I would estimate that I had at least ten students in my spring class who would have postponed their test date and not taken the June LSAT under the old rules. But these students were forced to grapple with the mauve dinosaurs just like everyone else under the new system.

So, in my humble opinion, there are two factors that are responsible for the increase in test takers on the June 2009 LSAT.

1. The new LSAC rules forced students to take the test who would have postponed in the past.

2. The economy and job market have sent people to law school that otherwise might not as a way ride out the recession.

At this point, it is hard to discern which of these factors is having a greater influence. However, potential law students can take some solace in the fact that there are two factors in play. Even if the test-taking population in September and December of this year is larger than normal, that will very likely not have a dramatic effect on admissions next year.

So sit back and relax. The only real conclusions will be drawn when application stats come in the door, which will not occur until spring of 2010.

So until the next round of hysteria, study for the LSAT and watch Baywatch if you need to relax. Hasselhoff is huge in Germany for a reason.