Q22 - The true scientific significance

[pistachio2014]

Hi. I'm confused by the argument and what the correct choice (A) is actually saying. Please help, thank you!

[aileenann]

Hi there - no worries, we'll get this sorted out.

First, let's take a look at the argument. The best way I know to do especially confusing arguments, particularly when reviewing, is to parse one sentence at a time. So let's take a look at the first sentence. It says that the fossils CW are discovered are important, but it seems to indicate that CW did not understand the full importance of his discovery. In fact, it seems like a later classification scheme (perhaps a way of naming the fossils or recognizing what species they are?) is more likely to show just how important CW's discovery is.

Now on to the second sentence. This just says that CW was part of a scientific establishment - so he was definitely part of "the establishment" or probably part of the mainstream/prestigious scientists in his society.

Third sentence. Here they have this "thus" that tells us some sort of causual or logical inference is being draw - in fact, being drawn from the sentence immediately before (the 2nd sentence). This tells us that the author is concluding whatever is in this sentence based on the fact that CW was part of the establishment.

The author then says in this 3rd sentence that CW's classification was unlikely to have done anything but confirm established science. So the author is saying in a roundabout way that CW's work would not have been revolutionarity. Reading between the lines, this makes me think the author believes the new classification scheme is revolutionary and that's why it shows the full importance of CW's later work.

I hope this helps. Once my explanation above makes sense, try to go back to the original language and work through it a little on your own now that it makes more sense. Then make sure you can figure out the core - in particular, think about whether it's the first sentence or the third sentence that is the ultimate conclusion of this argument. That's a tricky one (try the THEREFORE test if you're not sure).

Now, as to answer choice (A), let's parse that too. It says that the argument draws a conclusion about the usefulness/truth of an opinion ("the merit of a position" and the "content of that position") mostly based on CW's identity as a mainstream/established scientist ("from evidence about the position's source").

Does that make sense? Let me know how you feel about this question now

[anjelica.grace]

I correctly chose (A) but spent a long time trying to evaluate (E). Can someone help explain what (E) is even describing and why it is wrong?

[mehreena379]

can someone explain why the other answer choices are wrong?

[nbayar1212]

I think I can take a go at this.

B) is wrong because there are not "two pieces of evidence"; the only evidence (premise that supports the conclusion) seems to be the idea that if you were part of a past establishment, then you probably can't capture the significance of your scientific work apart from what people in the establishment thought at the time. Also, we don't have reason to believe that the evidence is "unverifiable" as this AC indicates.

c) is wrong because there is no evidence that seems to contradict another piece of evidence i.e. there are no two things in the stimulus that can't both be true.

d) Says the stimulus is trying to "establish the validity of a claim" (i.e. that true significance of CW's work will be captured in recent classifications) "by denying the truth of the opposite of that claim" (i.e. saying something like 'it can't be true that recent classifications DO NOT capture the work's true significance'). We see nothing of the sort which is why this AC is wrong. Also, contrary to what this AC is telling us, the second and third sentence together act as support for the conclusion as well.

e) is wrong because 1. there are no social or political categories used in the stimulus, and 2. even if there were such categories used, we have no reason to think they would not apply to CW's time since the stimulus does not tell us when CW made his contributions/was even alive.

Hope this helps.

[tommywallach]

Hey Guys,

Nbayar knocked this one out of the park. Well done!

-t

[WaltGrace1983]

Couldn't (B) also be wrong because it talks about conclusions, as in two conclusions? There seems to be only one conclusion: "The true scientific significance..." I'll explain.

I read the argument like this:

Walcott was a prominent member of scientific community
→
Classifications will most likely just confirm what is already believed to be true
→
Scientific significance of CW's work will be more likely reflected in recent classification than his own

I am not sure if my core is right because the intermediate conclusion and the actual conclusion posits a tricky distinction. However, I think it makes more sense to say that "the classifications will just confirm what we already think is true" therefore "the scientific significance is more likely reflected in recent classification than CW's own..."

For this one, I think it may be easier to find the correct answer through POE.

(B) No matter how you interpret the core, the number of premises/conclusions that this answer choice talks about doesn't match up. We have 3 pieces of information: two premises and a conclusion or perhaps you could see it as one premise, an intermediate conclusion, and a conclusion. Either way, this answer choice is talking about 4 pieces of information: two premises and at least two conclusions. This just simply doesn't add up.

(C) Nothing in this argument contradicts anything. Being a "prominent member of the scientific establishment" certainly doesn't contradict either the intermediate conclusion or the regular conclusion because neither one of them refutes this. In addition, the two other pieces of evidence actually go quite nicely together and support one another. This is wrong.

(D) This simply doesn't happen. The flaw that does this would be something like the following: "X is certainly not slow. Therefore, X is fast!" Another example would be the following: "X is certainly not tall so X must be short!" See what is going on here? It takes two opposite things and says that it cannot be one so it must be the other. This only works when there are only two choices. For example, if I said "one can either be tall or short. X is not tall. Therefore, X is short," that would be perfectly okay because there are only two options.

(E) I eliminated this because the stimulus is not talking about anything "political" and probably nothing "social" either. However, let's break down this answer choice and see what it says.

"It analyze the past on the basis of S and P categories that properly apply only to the present..."

This would be saying something along the lines of the following: "When analyzing the founding fathers of America, it seems very clear that they would all be allegiant to the Tea Party because they all did X, Y, and Z." Now I don't know if this is the perfect example but the point is that the Tea Party is a relatively new thing that only came about more than 200 years after the founding fathers died. We cannot judge them on modern terms.

Any other thoughts on that would be great too!

(A) is the correct answer. This also has some tricky wording so I'll see if I can break this down too.

"It draws conclusions about the merit/content of a position..."
It is concluding something about how merited (correct/accurate) a "position" is (a disposition or, in this case, the findings).

"...from evidence about the position's source"
This is saying that the argument is drawing conclusions simply based on the merits of the person who proposed it.

Thus, the answer choice is saying something like this in plain English:

"The argument is concluding how accurate CW's findings are from the fact that CW was a prominent scientist."

How does that look?

[tommywallach]

Looks good, Walt!

-t

[xw73]

Hey guys, I notice that a lot of you classify the first sentence as the conclusion, which I agree. If the first sentence is the conclusion, why D is not a better match?
D says, the argument tries to establish the validity of the first sentence "by denying the truth of the opposite of that claim". What's the opposite of that claim? I think it's that "the true scientific significance of Walcott's discovery is no more likely to be reflected in a recent classification." Does the last sentence deny this opposite claim? I think so.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Hey guys, I notice that a lot of you classify the first sentence as the conclusion, which I agree. If the first sentence is the conclusion, why D is not a better match?
D says, the argument tries to establish the validity of the first sentence "by denying the truth of the opposite of that claim". What's the opposite of that claim? I think it's that "the true scientific significance of Walcott's discovery is no more likely to be reflected in a recent classification." Does the last sentence deny this opposite claim? I think so.

Great question, xw73!

I agree with you that the opposite of the claim could be that "the true scientific significance of W's discovery is no more likely to be reflected in a recent classification." But I'm not sure how the last sentence denies this opposite claim. The last sentence would need to come right out and SAY the denial of the opposite claim.

I think that you may be feeling that the evidence supports the conclusion in the exact same way that it supports the "denial of the opposite of the conclusion." For example, take the argument: Roses are red, therefore they are tall.

The author is trying to use roses' redness to support the conclusion that they are tall. You could also characterize this as the author using the roses' redness to support the idea that they are not short. But in this situation, we are not using the 'denial of the opposite' as support for the conclusion. For that to be the case, we'd have to use the denial in place of the evidence, as WaltGrace1983 did above. (Roses are not short, therefore roses are tall.)

For (D) to work, the argument would need to say something like: "Walcott's classifications are less likely to show the true significance than is the modern classification. Therefore, the true significance is more likely to be reflected in the modern classification."

The final sentence here does not establish that denial of the opposite. All it tells us is that Walcott's classifications would have confirmed what was already taken to be true. But this tells us absolutely nothing about how likely it is to be the "true significance", and certainly nothing about how that likelihood compares to the likelihood of the recent classifications getting it right.

Does this clear things up a bit?

[xw73]

Hi christine.defenbaugh, thank you very much! this explanation helps!