#8 - Some years ago, an editorial defended United States

[linda.an]

Hello,

Could you please explain why D) should be eliminated?

I thought the assumption that the editorial makes is that there is a significant difference between the principles involved in each case. Thus, the speaker is refuting such assumption by saying that if there is such a significant different the editorial should have pointed it out.

Thank you of your help.

[Shannon Parker]

Hi,

LSAT authors use very specific language, and it is very important to pay attention to which words they choose to use. In a sentence like this, where the author says "IF" there is something, then the author cannot be assuming that there is. It should also be noted that stating that something should be explained is not refuting it. Refuting something calls for presenting an argument against it, which calling for an explanation does not.

In this passage the author points out that the editorial takes one position on the US, while maintaining the opposite position towards the Soviet government, thus "pointing out an apparent inconsistency in the editorial." (B).

I hope this helps.

~Shannon

[LSAT2018]

I noticed that there were contradictions in the first and second sentences and proceeded to select B as the answer. But I would like clarification on the first sentence since I had a hard time understanding it:

Some years ago, an editorial defended United States government restrictions on academic freedom, arguing that scientists who receive public funding cannot rightly “detach themselves from the government’s policies on national security

Is this saying that the editorial is supporting the US government restriction on public funding?

[Malila Robinson]

Hi LSAT2018,
It sounds like you are almost there, the stimulus is saying that a single editorial entity BOTH praised the US government's restrictions on academic freedom for publicly funded research that did not allow scientists to 'detach from government policies' (that's the first sentence), and criticized the Soviet government's restrictions on scientific research that did not allow the scientists to 'detach from politics' (that's the 2nd sentence).

Hope that helps,
-Malila

[Zach-Fox]

I got this answer right but I was between B and C. Ultimately, I chose B because the wording of "pointing out an inconsistency" is pretty clearly what happened here, but C is so close I just want to know why it's wrong. The editorial does seems to establish a general claim in regards to "scientists who...cannot rightly 'detach themselves from … national security." And subsequently ignoring the Soviets, would seem to be an exception.

Is it because the claim is not a general claim but more of specific set of opinions that are at odds, therefore creating an inconsistency instead of an exception?

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Zach,

I agree that there is a general claim in the editorial, but let's articulate it completely. It's the one you noticed, that "scientists who receive public funding cannot rightly detach themselves from the government's policies on national security." What would an "exception" to that claim be? It would be a scientist who has received public funding but is still able to rightly detach herself from government policies on national security. That's not what the argument alleges the editorial discusses. Rather (at least according to the author), the editorial discusses what the Soviet government does not allow scientists to do. So, in essence, there is no true "exception" to the general claim here, which makes answer choice C an inaccurate description.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[annabelle.swift]

Hi, I'm still not fully understanding the stimulus. What does it mean for scientists who receive public funding to not be able to "rightly 'detach themselves from the government's policies on national security'"? Is the US government forcing publicly funded scientists to research topics related to national security policy? Or is the government preventing publicly funded scientists from researching certain topics related to national security policy? Or is it both?

Thank you!

[Robert Carroll]

annabelle.swift,

I have no idea what the editorial was specifically talking about. The stimulus is reporting the editorial's argument, so we're at two removes from the editorial. The stimulus simply thinks that the editorial took conflicting positions on scientists in the US and the Soviet Union. The stimulus, at least, thinks that "detaching oneself from the US's governments policies on national security" and "detaching oneself from politics (in the Soviet Union)" are similar enough things that the editorial either should have criticized both or defended both.

Beyond that, I could speculate about what it would mean for a scientist to detach from government policies on national security, but it doesn't matter for answering this question, and it would just be speculation.

Robert Carroll