PrepTest 108, Section 3, Question 25
Anthropologist: After mapping the complete dominance hierarchy for(104 more words not shown)
The primatologist uses which one(10 more words not shown)
- Aciting various facts(10 more words not shown)
- Boffering another argument(14 more words not shown)
- Capplying one of(19 more words not shown)
- Dattacking the anthropologist's(18 more words not shown)
- Esuggesting that the(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Getting the prediction right doesn't settle why it was right.
The researchers first examined how monkeys interacted in pairs and mapped the group's dominance hierarchy: which monkeys ranked above others. Then they assumed each monkey knew the whole hierarchy, and that assumption helped them predict more complex group behavior. That's a useful result. But does it establish that every monkey really had all that knowledge?
The anthropologist treats the successful prediction as proof of the assumption. The primatologist accepts that the assumption helped with the prediction and challenges that last step. A useful way of predicting behavior need not be a true description of what's going on in the subject's mind.
Look at the cash-machine comparison. Suppose we predict what an ATM will dispense by imagining it wants to fulfill a customer's request. If the predicted cash comes out, have we shown that the machine really has desires? That's the strange result the primatologist wants us to notice. The analogy carries the disputed reasoning into a setting where the conclusion looks absurd.
What we’re looking for
We're identifying that argumentative technique. We don't have to claim monkeys and machines are alike in every respect. Follow the particular move being compared: assume a mental state, predict behavior successfully, then claim the mental state must be real.
Working the answers
- A
The primatologist doesn't supply facts that rule out the monkeys' knowledge. The monkeys might know the hierarchy even if this argument hasn't proved it. The cash-machine example challenges the move from prediction to proof; it doesn't establish that the anthropologist's conclusion is impossible.
- B
The primatologist doesn't start by assuming the monkeys lack that knowledge. The point is that the evidence doesn't establish that they have it. Those are different claims. Rejecting someone's proof isn't the same as taking the opposite conclusion as a premise.
- CCorrect
The shared step is treating an assumption's predictive success as grounds for declaring the assumption true. Apply it to the cash machine: assuming desires helps predict the output, so the machine must really have desires.
That conclusion is offered as absurd. If the anthropologist's reasoning would also license that result, we have a reason to question the reasoning. The response targets the inference without needing to settle what the monkeys actually know.
- D
There's no attack on the anthropologist's training or competence. The primatologist isn't saying, “You lack the expertise to study monkeys.” The objection concerns the reasoning offered, and the analogy illustrates that objection. Introducing an analogy also isn't an accusation that the other person was ignorant of it.
- E
Which scientific term is supposedly misinterpreted? The response doesn't correct a definition or argue that a word has been used incorrectly. It challenges what successful prediction establishes. Reject E for that concrete mismatch, not because answers about terminology are always wrong.
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