Which one of the following most accurately describes the structure of the passage?
AndrewArabieon July 21, 2023
"empirical implication"
I know what empirical means, and I know an implication is, but together I do not understand what an "empirical implication" is or how paragraphs 2-3 reflect that concept. To me it means something like "here's what this hypothesis does to this empirical evidence." But the hypothesis does nothing to the data-- it just provides a lens through which to interpret that data. I just need help understanding what E is saying.
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What an odd construction. Id probably take the same approach you did to figure out what it actually means, and look at the words separately. An implication of a theory is something that the theory either predicts or holds or similar, and since empirical more or just less means fact or evidence, I guess the term would mean like "something that the theory predicts or implies that is empirically true."
I think this definition more or less describes the two paragraphs, although it's a weird way to do so. We do have pieces of empirical evidence that seem to conform to the theory like the teeth changes.
That said I'd never have picked out E as being correct, I would have had to get to E through process of elimination.
