Q26 - Essayist: Common sense, which is always progressing

[ohthatpatrick]

This is an Inference question.

We should read the facts provided. This is not an argument/reasoning. Hence, there's no Prem/Conc to be found.

It can be helpful, though, to notice certain things as you read an Inference stimulus:
- Conditional language
- Causal language
- Quantitative language
- Contrast language
- Extreme language

Here, we have a blend of a lot of those:
conditional: "when alternative theories prove more useful, they take the place ..."
causal: "This causes common sense to progress"
contrast: "but, because it absorbs slowly"
extreme: "always progressing" / "always contains some obsolete theories"

There's too much to chew on, so we should spend our time with the answers, asking ourselves, "Can I prove this from the info provided?'

(A) The harshest, and therefore most important, part of this answer is the claim that something "will never be" absorbed into common sense. Did the info give us any means of proving something will NEVER be absorbed into common sense? It doesn't look like it.

(B) This makes a comparison between the older and newer theories in common sense. Does the stimulus make any comparison about which is "more useful"? It uses the concept of "more useful", but it does so as it compares whether an alternative theory (a theory NOT within the body of common sense) is more useful than a theory within the body of common sense. There's no mention of comparing one theory within the body of common sense to another theory within the body of common sense.

(C) The strongest wording here is "prevents". Do we know anything about "the frequency with which new theories are generated"? Nope. We do know that the absorption of new theories progresses slowly, but we don't hear why that's the case. Since we have no mention of how frequently new theories are generated, we can't speculate that the frequency of new theories is what explains the slow absorption.

(D) The strongest wording here is "each". Do we know that every single theory in common sense is eventually replaced by something more useful? No. The second sentence of the stimulus says "When" more useful alternatives develop. "When" is like "if". It's conditional/hypothetical. So "if" a newer, more useful theory develops, it will replace the older common sense theory. But we can't support that every single theory in the body of common sense one day comes up against a newer, more useful theory.

(E) This is the correct answer. We know that theories in the body of common sense have been tested over time and found useful (1st sentence). We know that theories in the body of common sense may one day come up against a more useful alternative theory (2nd sentence). We know that the newer theory will gradually become absorbed into the body of common sense and replace the obsolete theory (3rd sentence). Since we know that common sense is "always progressing" and "always contains some obsolete theories", we are guaranteed that at this moment there is at least one theory in common sense that is obsolete, and it will eventually be replaced by a more useful alternative theory that is not yet fully absorbed.

While the correct answer doesn't HAVE to synthesize all the information we were given, we can see how in this case, (E) does make use of all three claims in the stimulus.

[jionggangtu]

For D, but the answer mentions "eventually". I was thinking, maybe some theories are obsolete now, but they will be replaced when more useful theories become available. So, it is like it is not right at this point, but at some point in the future, it will happen.

Or, maybe the statement" it always contains some obsolete theories" excluded the possibilities that all the obsolete theories be replaced at the same time, so there is always something has not been replaced by more useful theory?

[ohthatpatrick]

The way you described your thinking on (D) was that "MAYBE some theories are obsolete now, but they will be replaced when more useful theories become available."

You're right, (D) is POSSIBLE.

But the question stem wants to know what MUST be true. Is it
MANDATORY, from the information we were given, that every single theory in common sense will ultimately be replaced?

No. There's nothing we can point to in the stimulus that would FORCE us to believe that every single theory in common sense will one day be replaced.

That's the sort of proof we need to argue that (D) must be true.

From the last sentence, we can prove that common sense always has at least some obsolete theories.

But we can't prove that every theory will at some point become obsolete.

You could have 10 total theories in common sense, and perhaps Theory A is 100% right, now and forever. It just can't be improved upon.

Meanwhile Theories B - J are pretty useful but periodically they get surpassed by a competing theory which renders them obsolete and replaces them.

That collection of theories fits all the requirements of what was described in the paragraph. But it wouldn't be true that EACH theory within the collection would eventually be replaced, because Theory A is part of the body of theories, but it never gets replaced.

Since a counterexample to (D) is possible, it doesn't HAVE to be true.

Hope that makes sense. Let me know if not.

[steves]

I understand that (E) is the best answer. I had picked (A) because I interpreted some theories not yet found useful as including some that would never be found useful (perhaps because they are not useful!). Was my error here in making too much of an inference, or in negating the statement (found more useful>absorbed into common sense), or both?

[ohthatpatrick]

(A) is definitely tempting. Part of it is softly worded, and common sense (no pun intended) would definitely make me think that SOME of the new theories are gonna be duds that never get absorbed.

But we can’t prove that from anything we read.

It just describes them as “new theories that have not yet been proven more useful”. It’s possible (even though it’s unlikely) that every single one of those new theories WILL, eventually, be proven more useful than some theory in the body of common sense.

If I say “some of Wanda’s children have not yet grown taller than six feet”, can you prove that some of her kids will NEVER be taller than six feet?

No. And that’s the same leap / gap / problem we’d have in supporting (A).

Hope this helps.