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#27364
Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D)

The author mentions the healthful effects of wine in the first paragraph to show that the commonly held scientific assumption (wine is the same as other alcoholic beverages) may be incorrect.
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 nzLSAT
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#88934
How did you rule out B? That was what I got as my answer.
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 atierney
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#88952
Hi,

You know, I can kind of understand where you're coming from with this answer choice. The idea here is that well, the centuries old belief is based on something, right? In other words, it's an old wives tale, because some old wife probably observed/used/believed it for some reason. So I can see how you would want to pick B as an answer choice. The problem is, is that simply believing something is true, regardless of what such belief is subjectively based upon, is not in and of itself evidence of the truthfulness of said thing. In other words, for centuries, a certain culture believe that this ritual provides a magical blessing for all, and therefore the culture practice said ritual to this day; the culture's practice and it's belief in the ritual is not itself evidence of the validity of the ritual's efficacy for providing whatever effects it is believed to provide. Now, scientists could research the ritual and find that it is indeed effective; however, the research, consisting of studies, experiments, etc., much like the rest of passage here, would constitute the evidence of its efficacy.

Here, the belief is like that nagging doubt you have, the propels you to look into something you though you had all figured out. What follows from said investigation will be the evidence to either put the doubt to rest or confirm that your suspicions were right all along.

But the doubt itself is suggestion to make that investigation, and thus D is the correct answer, not B.

Let me know if you have further questions.

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