Q25 - If ecology and the physical sciences were evaluated

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Match the Reasoning

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Ecology isn't being evaluated by normal physical science standards.
Evidence: If ecology and physical sciences were evaluated by same standards, ecology would fail to be a successful science (because ____ ). But ecology is a successful science.

Answer Anticipation:
This is an argument via contrapositive.
You provide a rule "If A, then B",
you provide a fact that triggers the contrapositive, "~B",
and then you conclude the consequence of the contrapositive, "~A".

We can try to speed up our process by making sure that once we find our conditional rule (assuming we find one), we make sure that a premise fact says "but the right side idea is NOT the case".

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) The original rule is "If A, then B or C". That's more complicated than the original. An argument by contrapositive here would have to establish both ~B and ~C as facts.

(B) The "but" fact is not contradicting the right side of the conditional.

(C) The fact is referring to the left side of the conditional.

(D) This fact is referring to the left side of the conditional.

(E) Yes. The "but" fact is contradicting the right side of the conditional, and the conclusion is saying that therefore the left side idea must not apply.

Takeaway/Pattern: Since these questions can take a long time if we read them fully, we try to prime our brains, before looking at answers, with some quick way to identify whether an answer choice "has a chance".

Here, we know we needed a conditional "A --> B" and then a fact "~B" in order to derive our conclusion. So we can quickly scan for conditional language, look at what the right side (B) idea is, and then see if we're given a fact that goes against that (~B).

(Remember, CONCLUSIONS are not facts. We would not look there)

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