PrepTest 145, Section 3, Question 16

Working the answers

• A

  B's complaint concerns assumptions about animal intention. It doesn't argue that researchers misunderstand how often humans speak without knowing their listeners' mental states.

• B

  The problem is the reasoning, not the researchers' credentials. B doesn't say most of them lack the qualifications to interpret experiments. We can challenge an argument without making a claim about its author's education.

• C

  B discusses the possibility of deception but doesn't identify well-known cases of deliberate animal lies that these researchers ignore. Its later reference to research narrowing the gap is not a specific claim that animal deception has been established.

• D
  Correct

  Empirically means through observation or experiment. Whether animals have conscious intentions is something to investigate. B objects to treating their absence as settled before evaluating animal communication. That is the force of calling the argument circular and noting evidence that narrows the perceived gap.

• E

  This changes the dispute into one about evolutionary explanations for every communication system. A's brief evolutionary observation isn't B's target. How a signal could benefit the animal doesn't settle whether the animal currently uses it with intention.