PrepTest 150, Section 2, Question 12
Scientist: Some pundits claim that the public is(25 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AAlleged scientific claims(20 more words not shown)
- BIf a person(15 more words not shown)
- CPeople may be(17 more words not shown)
- DIf the public(21 more words not shown)
- EAnyone who claims(10 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe this scientist hasn't met the people who are afraid.
Imagine a scientist living alone in a remote part of Alaska, with very little contact with the public. Decades of not encountering a fearful person wouldn't tell us much. Or imagine the scientist lives in a Connecticut community where people are comfortable with scientists, while people elsewhere are afraid. The local experience could be completely accurate without settling what the broader public thinks.
What we’re looking for
The argument needs that experience to tell us something about the public. For this necessary-assumption question, I'd predict: if the public really were afraid of scientists, a scientist would have encountered at least one fearful person over those decades. Without that connection, 'I haven't met one' doesn't establish that the pundits are wrong.
Working the answers
- A
People might reasonably guard against manipulation without being afraid of scientists themselves. More importantly, the scientist's reasoning doesn't depend on what explains or justifies anyone's fear. It depends on whether decades of personal encounters would reveal the public's fear if it existed.
- B
We aren't told how well the public understands science. Even if understanding it would eliminate fear, people could currently misunderstand it and be afraid. B describes what would happen under an additional condition; it doesn't establish the link between this scientist's experience and the public's actual attitude.
- C
Fear of technology and fear of scientists are different things. The public could distinguish them in the way C describes, but the argument doesn't need that distinction to be true. The scientist uses a lack of fearful encounters as evidence about fear of scientists, not about technology.
- DCorrect
This supplies the needed connection. If public fear would lead to at least one encounter over several decades, then the scientist's failure to encounter anyone afraid is evidence against that public fear. If, instead, the public could be afraid while a scientist went decades without meeting a fearful person, the argument's experience-based reasoning would fail. D doesn't require the scientist to meet everyone; it requires the experience to register widespread fear at least once.
- E
No one's claim to be afraid is being used as evidence here. The scientist reports never meeting anyone afraid, not meeting people who say they are afraid and then deciding whether to believe them. Some people could lie about their fear without affecting the proposed connection between widespread fear and the scientist's encounters.
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