Q15 - Some scientists have expressed

[jennifer]

I am still unsure why the answer to this question is B. I made the mistake of immediatly eliminating this answer choice because it states " withstood them all". However how could the theory withstand all tests if there is a margin of error.

[bbirdwell]

"accurate WITHIN the ACCEPTED margin of error" = withstood

[rbolden]

What makes E incorrect? Is it the "only if."

[bbirdwell]

Yep! In logic speak, (B) is better than (E) because we don't need the "not disproved" part to be the necessary condition, we want it to be the sufficient condition.

In plain English, this doesn't have to be the ONLY way to accept a theory. And knowing that wouldn't be enough to justify the reasoning anyway.

However, if the "not disproved" part is simply ENOUGH to warrant the conclusion, this helps to justify the argument's reasoning.

I'll try to make an analogy:

John had peanut butter for lunch. Therefore peanut butter is his favorite food.

(A) Having a food for lunch is the only way it can be a person's favorite.

(B) A food is person's favorite if that person eats it for lunch.

Subtle, but important difference. (A) simply leaves open the possibility that peanut butter MIGHT be John's favorite food. There could be other conditions that must also be met.

(B) is ENOUGH to draw the conclusion that peanut butter is John's favorite food.

Symbolized, these would look like this:
(A) favorite food --> eat for lunch

(B) eat for lunch --> favorite food

This is just like the argument:
(B) not disproven --> accepted

(E) accepted --> not disproven

Which one lines up with the argument, premise --> conclusion?
(B)!

[irini101]

I narrow down to B and D, is D incorrect because the scope shift between "accept" in the stimulus and "not reject" in E?

So "not reject" is not similar to "accept"?

Thanks in advance!

[lhermary]

How is the answer not C?

Thanks

[timmydoeslsat]

You want to go into the answer choices attempting to justify the conclusion of this theory warranting acceptance.

(C) does not get us there. This does not help with accepting a theory. Also, we know that this theory has counterintuitive consequences. We are not attempting to disprove that.

[tzyc]

About answer choise (D), if we use if-then to re-write the sentence, I think it would be "if it has not been subjected to serious attempts to disprove it, a theory should not be rejected", correct? I think it matches not disprove→accepted. Why is (D) wrong?

[timmydoeslsat]

About answer choise (D), if we use if-then to re-write the sentence, I think it would be "if it has not been subjected to serious attempts to disprove it, a theory should not be rejected", correct? I think it matches not disprove→accepted. Why is (D) wrong?

Answer choice D is saying:

Should be rejected ---> Subjected to serious attempts to disprove it

As you can see, this would not help us get to should be accepted for 2 reasons:

1. The idea of ~rejected does not equal accepted.

2. We have a situation of this being subjected to serious attempts to disprove it. That is simply a necessary condition in this principle. We cannot infer anything just because we have met a requirement. You would be able to infer something had a requirement not been met, in which we could infer ~rejected. But even this does not equal acceptance.

[tzyc]

Hi timmy, thanks for your answer.
I actually do not quiet get what your 2nd reason means...could you explain that in different words or in detail? sorry...
(I'm not sure about this part..."We have a situation of this being subjected to serious attempts to disprove it. That is simply a necessary condition in this principle." Which sentence are you talking?)

[timmydoeslsat]

I apologize for not being more clear. I hope this clears it up.

You do agree that answer choice D can be looked at like this:

Should be rejected ---> Subjected to serious attempts to disprove it

If you do not agree with this interpretation, please go here to read about the nuances of these types of things: http://www.manhattanlsat.com/forums/symbolizing-compound-conditional-statements-in-binary-groupi-t6281.html?hilit=unless&sid=c794ea63ab5e13bccb5a235b74b5dd25

So the principle of:

Should be rejected ---> Subjected to serious attempts to disprove it

For us to use this principle we need a case of the sufficient occurring. We do not have that. To still use this principle, we need a case of the necessary not occurring, as this would give us the contrapositive. We do not have that either in this argument. We actually do have "Subjected to serious attempts to disprove it" occurring in the argument. However, just because this is occurring in the argument, does not give us justification to use this principle due to the location in the conditional. This bit of information is on the necessary side.

Equivalent situation:

Timmy should be accepted into club only if he wears glasses.
Timmy wears glasses.

Accepted ---> Wears glasses
Wears glasses

But we cannot conclude anything due to this being a necessary condition. Although it is true that we have a situation of "Wears glasses" occurring in the argument, the placement of the information does not allow us to infer anything.

Imagine if the argument had said this:

Timmy wears glasses only if he is accepted into the club.
Timmy wears glasses

We can conclude that I am accepted into the club. In this case, the situation occurring "Wears glasses" is on the sufficient side, so this triggers the necessary.

[joseph.m.kirby]

This thread has a lot of great information; I thought I would add some additional information. I think the extractable principle from the stimulus is:

Shown to be accurate by lasting through rigorous tests + not equaled by competitor → accept

(B) Subjected to serious attempts to disprove it + withstood them all --> accept

Perhaps one of the tests was comparing the results of quantum theory to that of its competitors; given that quantum theory had the better results, it was accepted.

[kristinaroz1001]

Hi Timmy,

Why can't we use the contrapositive for this?
Should be rejected ---> Subjected to serious attempts to disprove it

Also, would you mind expanding on the logic behind not rejected not equaling acceptance, as a way to elimiate this answer choice?

And can we elminate answer E based on the term "experiment" as this is not found in the stimulus.

Thanks in advance!

[roflcoptersoisoi]

I got this question right by using conditional logic. Out of curiosity though would this be classified as principle example or a principle support? I presume it would be the latter but wanted to confirm.

[tommywallach]

Support: we're being asked to justify (i.e. support) something.

-t

[EllenG551]

Thank you for the explanations! Sorry I still don't see why (B) is a better choice than (C). The first sentence does point out that one of the reasons that some scientists refuse to accept the theory is its counterintuitive consequences. I do think (C) can help with accepting a theory here.

I saw the previous explanations about (B), but I still can't see it justifying the argument reasoning. We don't know if the quantum theory has withstood all of the serious attempts to disprove it, right?

You want to go into the answer choices attempting to justify the conclusion of this theory warranting acceptance.

(C) does not get us there. This does not help with accepting a theory. Also, we know that this theory has counterintuitive consequences. We are not attempting to disprove that.

[snoopy]

Thank you for the explanations! Sorry I still don't see why (B) is a better choice than (C). The first sentence does point out that one of the reasons that some scientists refuse to accept the theory is its counterintuitive consequences. I do think (C) can help with accepting a theory here.

I saw the previous explanations about (B), but I still can't see it justifying the argument reasoning. We don't know if the quantum theory has withstood all of the serious attempts to disprove it, right?

C is saying "accurate predictions --> consequences of sci theory not counterintuitive." But, the stim doesn't claim that accurate predictions will make the consequences become any less counterintuitive. The core argument is that the results withstood rigorous attempts to disprove the scientific theory, warranting acceptance of that theory.
Even though B says "withstood ALL," we're trying to find a principle that strengthens. It might not be 100% fitting, but it's very close in principle with the stimulus. That being said, B says "withstood all serious disproving attempts --> accept scientific theory" which is the argument.