#18 - Modern science is built on the process of posing

[blade21cn]

(A), (C), and (D) are easy losers. Both (B) and (E) are "most" statements. The only support in the stimulus for the "most" language is the second sentence - "Nothing brings more recognition than overthrowing conventional wisdom," which can be paraphrased as "Overthrowing conventional wisdom brings most recognition." But this is a factual statement, i.e., the objective world. (B) states "Most researchers in climatology have substantial motive to find evidence that would discredit the global warming hypothesis." First of all, the "most" language in (B) is about "researchers," but the "most" language in the stimulus is about the "things" that bring recognition. Secondly, "motive/motivation" describes a subjective world. How can the objective world prove or disprove the subjective world, and vice versa? And how is (B) better than (E) - Research in global warming is primarily driven by a desire for recognition in the scientific community - which is at least a factual statement, i.e., the objective world? Thanks!

[Robert Carroll]

blade,

First, your paraphrase of the second sentence is ambiguous, and that's not good if it's meant to be a paraphrase that makes more clear the structure of the statement. "Nothing brings more recognition" means "Of all the things that might bring recognition, none works better than this." My concern with your paraphrase is that it seems to possibly deny that anything could be "tied" with overthrowing convention wisdom; in other words, something might bring as much recognition as overthrowing conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom cannot be outdone by anything, but it could be equaled by something. Also, if conventional wisdom is (at least) tied for the largest degree of recognition, that doesn't mean that "most" recognition comes from it. I could say "No one scored more points than I did" even if I scored fewer than half of all points. If I have 10 points, my friend 6, and another person 5, no one scored more than me, but I did not score most of the points.

I think it's fair to say that the second sentence is factual, but I don't see anything about answer choice (B) that's anything other than factual. Motives can be subjective, sure, but answer choice (B) is a statement about people's motives. To make this more apparent, consider the following:

1. Robert: Vanilla is the best ice cream flavor.

2. 66% of respondents prefer vanilla ice cream to all other flavors.

Statement 2 is factual. It's about people's preferences, but it's a statement of fact about those preferences, isn't it? It'd be silly to try to prove 1 wrong. It's not silly to try to prove 2 wrong, because it's objective data we could collect about people's preferences. Trying to argue with those preferences would be silly, but to argue that the data collected about the preferences are inaccurate is scientifically valid.

Similarly, answer choice (B) looks to me as if it's a statistical statement about motivations people have. It's about motivation, not a statement involving motivations. So I think a factual/opinion or objective/subjective rejection of answer choice (B) is off the mark.

Your analysis of that should also show that answer choice (E) is just as subjective, so I don't see any way to make progress with it. As I pointed out earlier, though, it's not an accurate way to approach the two answers.

I don't think answer choice (B) is trying to transfer the "most" between two different statements. Instead, there's a really good way to get recognition - overthrow the conventional wisdom on global warming. Most, if not everyone, could gain recognition doing that, so they have a motivation to do so.

Robert Carroll