Scientific and technological discoveries

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: harmful consequences8% picked this

   Predictions of scientific and technological discoveries or predictions of their effects have harmful consequences

   The author only talked about it being hard to make predictions because of "considerable effects". There's nothing here about whether those effects are good or bad.

   8%
2. B

   Too Strong5% picked this

   The development of a society requires scientific and

   The author never suggested societies require anything. The author just happens to be saying something about societies that would have frequent sci & tech discoveries. If I say "football players who have braids must find their helmets extra uncomfortable", I am not assuming "playing football requires having braids".

   5%
3. C

   Correct80% picked this

   Forecasts of scientific and technological discoveries, or forecasts of their effects, are

   Why this is right

   Whenever we're doing Necessary Assumption, we get very enticed by answers ruling out an idea with "not / no" type language. These are the answers for which it's most important to negate it, and see if it turns into an Objection. Does this negation sound like an Objection? Predictions of sci & tech discoveries and predictions of their effects are entirely reliable. Heck yeah it does! The author was saying these societies with lots of sci & tech discoveries would be extra hard to make predictions about. We're countering that strongly with, "Not so, good chap. Predictions about sci & tech discoveries and their considerable effects are entirely reliable!" This is basically the Defender assumption we predicted, ruling out our objection that maybe it's not too hard to predict the considerable effects of these discoveries.

   Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   80%
4. D

   Out of Scope: benefit2% picked this

   An advanced scientific and technological society frequently benefits from

   This is just like (A). The author only talked about it being hard to make predictions because of "considerable effects". There's nothing here about whether those effects are good or bad.

   2%
5. E

   Out of Scope4% picked this

   It is not as difficult to predict scientific and technological discoveries in a technologically more advanced society as it is in

   Out of Scope: advanced vs. less advanced The argument never talked about how advanced a society was or wasn't. It was only about whether or not it had frequent sci & tech discoveries. We don't know whether more advanced or less advanced societies are more likely to have frequent discoveries. Maybe the more advanced a society gets, the less there is left to discover, so the rate of discoveries slows down. Maybe the more advanced a society gets, the better technology they have, which allows the rate of discoveries to speed up.

   4%