Statistical analysis is a common tool for explanation in the physical sciences. It can only be used, however, to expl...

shunhe on June 30, 2020

Hi @avif,

Thanks for the question! So let’s recap the stimulus first. We’re told that statistical analysis is used to explain things in physical sciences. But you can only use it to explain events you can replicate exactly. But human mental events can’t do that, so you can’t use statistical analysis to explain these events. So you can’t explain human mental events with physical sciences.

Honestly, everything in the argument seemed to check out until that last sentence, which is just far too broad and doesn’t really follow from the rest of the argument. And that’s exactly what the flaw is here, the argument concludes way too much based on the stimulus. It can’t be explained with any physical sciences because a tool commonly used in physical sciences can’t be used? Physical sciences could have other tools, or there could be a physical science that doesn’t rely on statistical analysis (remember, we can’t bring in outside knowledge, so this is a possibility). So the answer choice should reflect this.

Now take a look at (E). We’re told that one good way to explain historical events is to construct a coherent narrative. To do that, we need details, but we don’t have that about very ancient historical events. So we can’t give any historical explanation for these events. Again, the same flaw applies here. We conclude that we absolutely cannot give ANY explanation for certain historical events from the fact that we can’t use ONE good way to explain historical events. But there might be other ways to do so. Thus, (E) is over broad just like the stimulus, and the correct answer choice.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

avif on June 30, 2020

Thanks! That really helped!

shunhe on July 2, 2020

Great, glad you find it helpful!