#4 - Panelist: Medical research articles cited

[Adam Tyson]

srcline asked this question in another thread:

this question is really similar to q.4, so the break in that argument was publicity received by that research and equating it with do not strongly correspond to research's true importance. Wouldn't C be correct too.b/c it brings of the new element of "eminence of scientists". Same thing; wouldn't the eminence of the scientists play a role in the judgment of the researchers?

The issue here is not about the eminence of the scientists. We don't know exactly why the newspapers are citing some research and not others. It could be because the scientists are popular and eminent, the rock stars of the science world (Neil deGrasse Tyson comes to mind), but it could also be because the research was especially important and groundbreaking, or because the scientists who did the research were better at marketing their results to news outlets, or any number of reasons. That's why answer C is not the correct flaw here. While C might strengthen the argument made in the stimulus, it is not a flaw of that argument, because we cannot assume that that's why the press cites some articles more than others. Beware of new information like this in Flaw answer choices. Flaw questions are in the same family as Must Be True questions, and new information is, at best, suspect, and usually means you are looking at a wrong answer.

I view this one as a simple cause and effect argument. The author is assuming that the articles are being considered important because they were cited in the press; maybe that cause and effect is reversed? Perhaps the importance of the research is in fact the cause of their being cited in the press? That's what answer B is all about - taking into consideration the possibility of a reversed cause and effect.