Did someone already explain this question? I don't see a response to Sean's question from 04/02/18
Jacob-RMarch 29, 2019
I’m happy to help. We want to figure out the author’s attitude towards the thesis mentioned in line 56: “Natural reality never plays any part at all in determining what scientists believe.â€
Before looking at answer options, I find it useful to try to answer that question in my own words. Some clues about the author’s attitude to that thesis is apparent from the same paragraph: he says one can accept “all this†(referring to what immediately preceded) “WITHOUT†accepting this thesis. So we know he does not agree with the thesis! We also know that from what follows, namely a suggestion of what the new historians OUGHT to be showing us (instead of that thesis!)
Why is he against that thesis? Because some scientific facts are based in natural reality! We saw that from lines 24-31 — water is made from h20, and the author does not “BELIEVE†(key indicator word) that any person can claim these are not factual descriptions about natural reality!
So now let’s take a look at the answer.
Answer A says: biases and rhetorical. But the biases of scientists and their rhetorical power is acknowledged by the author. Remember, he says we can “accept all this†(including that some scientific facts are due to social forces rather than purely based in material reality, lines 48-51) and STILL think that other scientific facts are based in natural reality! So this answer doesn’t reveal the author’s attitude.
Answer B: Wield and falsification. Wield — wrong for the same reason as answer A. Falsification: this is the opposite of what the author’s view is! He thinks that some scientific facts are NOT subject to future falsification. So this also doesn’t reveal the author’s attitude.
Answer C: Conjectures: wrong for the same reason as falsification! The author thinks that some scientific facts are more than brave conjectures. Truck with: Here the author is saying something about the views of philosophers of science, so these words don’t clearly “reveal†the author’s own view.
Answer D: Ah ha! Extremism and implausible. Now we’re getting somewhere. Extremism is the extremism of the historians, who “explain the acceptance of [scientific] views in terms of the ideological biases of certain influence scientists. . . †That explanation is not what the author believes, because the author thinks that some scientific views are based in material reality rather than ideology. And that is why the author considers the historians’ view extreme!
Implausible: This one is key. “While this rejection of the traditional belief that scientific views are objective reflections of the world may be fashionable, it is deeply implausible.†That is it! That specifically reveals the author’s view. We have a winner!
Answer E is tricky. “Naive†perhaps does reveal the author’s attitude about something, insofar as it is naive to think that material truth reveals itself to any scientist who looks in the right direction. But remember, we are looking for an answer that reveals the author’s attitude towards a specific thesis: that natural reality never plays any part at all in determining scientific belief. That naive view does not reveal the author’s attitude about this specific thesis, namely that it is wrong. Same for “errors†insofar as it is another statement by the author. But again, it doesn’t directly reveal the author’s belief about the cited thesis, so answer E is wrong.
Whew! This is one of the tougher reading comprehension questions I have come across, so don’t feel bad if it was tricky to you. It was tricky to me too! But I hope my explanation helped. Please let us know if you have further questions.
