#12 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

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

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[sgd2114]

Hi,

Is answer (C) incorrect because of the word "source"? Rather than a source, in line (20), the views of the historians are seen as an "easy step from" the philosophers (i.e., a natural extension from) rather than a "source"?

Is answer (E) incorrect because the historians never "explicitly" acknowledge their views to be indebted to the philosophers, but instead the author suggests they "seem to find allies" (line 12) with them?

Thank you.

[Adam Tyson]

Correct on both counts, sgd2114! The passage tells us nothing about any direct or intentional connection between the two groups, the historians and the philosophers. The connection is nothing more than a partial overlap of their ideas, that scientific theories are not objectively "real." We have no text to suggest that this overlap is anything more than a coincidence!

Good work, keep it up.

[falconbridge]

Hi,

This question really annoyed me as I was sure that I had it right.

As someone else has stated, in the first paragraph it states that "while these philosophers of science themselves would not be likely to have much truck with the recent historians, it is an easy step from their views to the extremism of the historians."

Given this line, I chose answer A) "These two views are difficult to differentiate" as opposed to be B) "These two views share some similarities." My line of thinking was that, if "it is an easy step" from one view to another, then they must share more than SOME similarities, and must be very compatible, and thus "difficult to differentiate."

No?

[Adam Tyson]

That's too big a leap, falconbridge. Just because it's an easy step from one thing to another, that doesn't mean that they are difficult to differentiate. A few examples, perhaps?

My brother and a look a lot alike. It's an easy step to recognize him after seeing me. But we are not identical twins and few people would ever confuse us for each other.

It's an easy step from browsing in the fridge at midnight to eating that last piece of cake, but you should have no trouble telling the difference between someone eating and someone just looking.

It's an easy step from feeling angry at someone to yelling at them.

See?

Also, remember that if it is true that there are a lot of similarities between two things, then there must be some similarities. "Some" doesn't mean "a small number." It means "more than zero." So if you agree that there are many similarities (and I am not so sure that's supported here, but let's roll with it a moment), then answer B MUST be true, because many similarities would be more than zero. It's "some"!

[g_lawyered]

Hi,
I have a different question than those that have been posted. I think I'm not interpreting the language of the line asked in question correctly. Does anyone have any tips on how to better prephrase the information because I now see that my line of reasoning was off. Here was my line of reasoning:
The line says "these historians seemed to find allies with certain philosophers", this must mean that their point of view regarding scientific views must have SOMEWHAT in agreement. Line further down say "While theses philosophers of science themselves wouldn't be likely to TRUCK with recent historians...". I didn't really understand what they meant by "trucking with each other" so I assumed it meant they had non-disagreeing point of views (I didn't assume that they agreed because I thought that was a far reach to assume. I assume that they didn't agree or they were neutral in their points of view). I didn't pay attention to the last part of that sentence because I didn't understand it either.
How can we infer that the philosophers point of view & the recent historians point of view are similar from the phrase "it's an easy step away from their views to...". I thought that line served to demonstrate how the AUTHOR point of view disagreed with the historians point of view. I thought that line didn't relate to the historians and philosophers.

For this reason, I choice answer D because I thought they both had their own points of view on rhetorical power of scientists' since it's stated in line 4 "explain the acceptance scientists' wield".

I also contemplated answer choice A, only because I didn't understand much of their point of views other than they were allies. I decided answer choice D was better than A.
I didn't like any of the remaining answers including the correct answer.

Can someone please indicate where my reasoning went wrong and how I can better interpret what the passage is saying in those lines???
Thanks

[Paul Marsh]

Hi GGiba! When we're Pre-Phrasing an answer to this kind of question, we want to look at all the relevant info in the passage. Certainly we look to the sentence cited in line 12, starting with "These historians...". That sentence tells us that the recent historians have some common threads with certain philosophers of science.

But we also look to the sentence after that, starting with "While these...". The phrase in that second sentence "would not be likely to have much truck with..." means something like, "they would not be likely to associate themselves with". That phrase indicates that there are some differences between the philosophers and the recent historians.

So after reading those couple sentences, our Pre-Phrase here would probably look something like, "Their views have some similarities but are still distinct from one another".

Answer Choice A we can toss out, because again the second sentence we looked at showed that there are differences between the two.

Answer Choice D assumes too much. For all Must be True RC questions, we want explicit support for our answer in the passage. While the recent historians subscribe to what D is saying, there is nothing in the passage that says that the philosophers of science emphasize the rhetorical power of scientists. And since we know from the second sentence we read that the philosophers and recent historians don't necessarily share all the same views, we can't just assume that the philosophers do in fact emphasize that.

Answer Choice B, on the other hand, seems to match our Pre-Phrase pretty well. It points out that the two views have similarities, but never pretends that the views are identical. It's our best answer here.

Hope that helps!

[kenlars5]

Hi there,

I chose answer D, but after reading the explanations it makes sense why B is right. Just a question though, if D had said something like "Both views emphasize that scientific views are not imposed by reality" or something along the lines of scientific views not being objectively accurate reflections of the natural world, would it be right? Is D not right because we don't know what the philosophers of science think about "rhetorical power" of scientists?

Thanks!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi ken,

Yes, you're exactly right! The philosophers emphasize that scientific views are the "free inventions of creative minds" (rather than being imposed by objective reality). This emphasis on creativity and freedom is different from rhetorical power, which is really an emphasis on the authority scientists have to shape our perceptions.

Your proposed rewording is exactly right: it would have to center on how both sides reject an "objective" correspondence between scientific claims and the "real world."

Great job!