#17 - Global Reference, Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Katherinthesky]

Hello,

Can anyone please find me the support for (E)?
Is it "Sibley's work has not been widely accepted... Basically arbitrary... Sibley might not have disagreed, at least not entirely."

I picked (C) but now feel that (C) is actually the opposite of what Sibley believes.

Thanks in advance.

[Robert Carroll]

Katherinthesky,

The support for answer choice (E) is the third paragraph. A critic thinks that species classification is arbitrary, and the author says Sibley might not have disagreed with that. Further, later in the paragraph, we get a quote from Sibley himself saying that species classification boils down, to some extent, to how we choose to use names - there's no "fact of the matter" as to how many species there "really" are, so different proposals based on different criteria point up ineradicable differences between people that will continue to lead to disagreements.

Robert Carroll

[candleash]

Hi, could I get an explanation on why C is wrong? I read the line in the 3rd paragraph "we must limit the number of degrees..." to mean that, because there are so many examples of animal populations that do not fit within our various criteria, current criteria should be loosened and thus classification should be simplified...

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi candle,

Answer choice (C) goes further than the passage. While Sibley does say that some simplification needs to occur, he does not say that's the overall goal of ornithologists. Similarly, we don't know how far the simplification should go. According to answer choice (C), there's no end given to the simplification. Sibley would be unlikely to agree that we should simplify to the point that everything was just called a bird. Sibley's point was that there should be a balance between specificity and usability in terminology, so while some amount of simplification is required, the overall goal wouldn't be to simplify the system.

Hope that helps!