Q5 - Observatory director: Some say

[martintp]

Can someone tell me what E means? I dont quite understand it...

[maryadkins]

This is a weirdly worded flaw question. (They generally aren't worded this way anymore.) The core is:

if we had applied the argument that funding only benefits the astronomers who work with it to famous physicists, it would have deprived the world of their beneficial research

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the megatelescope should be funded/developed and people who say otherwise are wrong

What's a flaw in this argument? One is that we aren't given any reason to think that this project is comparable to the greatest physics projects ever. An analogy: People who tell me that I can't be a world champion cyclist are wrong because people said the same thing to Lance Armstrong, and if he had listened, he wouldn't have won 100 Tour de Frances. The problem with that argument? Maybe I'm not as talented as Lance Armstrong (shocking, I know). (E) is saying something like this.

(A) is incorrect because the argument isn't appealing to the authority of experts.
(B) is incorrect because it need not identify who holds the opinion. We're told what the opinion is.
(C) is incorrect because there is no personal attack.
(D) is incorrect because the argument doesn't deal with different understandings of "benefit." Stick to the core.