Logical Reasoning

PT121 · S1 · Q19 Analyst: A recent survey showed

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Analyst: A recent survey showed that although professors of biology who teach but do not pursue research made up one twentieth of all science professors, they were appointed to fewer than one twentieth of all the scientific administrative positions in universities.

Conclusion

University administrators tends to be biased against appointing professors to scientific administrative positions, if those professors have failed to pursue research.

Evidence

In a survey, it was found that bio professors who haven't pursued research are disproportionately underrepresented among all scientific administrative positions in universities.

They're 1/20 of all science professors, but they fill less than 1/20 of sci admin positions.

Evaluate

Disproportionate representation is one of those asymmetric Comparisons we refer to as a Curious Fact. The author's conclusion offers an Explanation.

Curious Fact ... why are bio professors who don't pursue research underrepresented in scientific admin positions?

Author's Explanation ... it's cuz they haven't pursued research. The people at the university who decide on whom to appoint to this scientific admin positions are biased against professors who haven't pursued research.

Goal

Since this is Weaken, we're expecting a correct answer to

1. Suggest an Alternate Explanation for why these research-less bio professors are under-appointed to scientific admin positions or 2. Undermine the plausibility of the Author's Explanation, making it seem like university higher-ups are not biased against professors who haven't pursued research.

19.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the support for the analyst's conclusion?

In universities there are fewer
No Impact: nonscientific admin positions
A possible Alternate Explanation for why these research-less bio professors are under-appointed to scientific admin positions could be that there just aren't a lot of admin positions available for biology professors. This answer almost feels like it's giving us this alternate explanation, but it's not saying that the number of admin positions is so low that there just aren't enough available spots for bio professors who haven't pursued research to reach that 1/20 proportion. Instead, it's just saying there are fewer spots than nonscientific admin positions. We know nothing about how many nonscientific positions there are, so this comparison is meaningless to us.
17% picked this
Correct
Biologists who do research fill
Why this is right
This badly undermines the author's explanation that "failing to pursue research" is the reason for the disproportionately low proportion of those bio professors. After all, the ones who have pursued research are also disproportionately underrepresented. If failing to pursue research were really the Causal Difference-Maker, then we'd see a difference between the bio professors who have and who haven't pursued research. This doesn't point us to any other specific Alternate Explanation, but it strongly suggests there must be some other explanation for the underrepresentation (maybe the bias from the university faculty is really against biology professors, whether or not they've pursued research).
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
70% picked this
Biology professors get more than
No Impact
No Impact: science grant money Unclear Impact: Biology professors We're only analyzing whether there's a bias involved in appointing these professors to scientific admin positions. We're not really going to care whether there's disproportionality when it comes to science grant money. Too separate an issue. Also, this answer is talking about all biology professors. We know that bio professors who don't do research make up 1/20, but we know what fraction of science professors are biology professors. If bio professors who don't do research are 1/20, then when we add in all the bio professors who do do research, we know that bio professors collectively make up more than 1/20 of science professors. How much more? We have no idea, so we can't judge whether this answer is even telling us that the proportion for getting grant money is higher / lower / same.
1% picked this
Conducting biological research tends to
No Impact
This answer might help explain why some professors are unable or unwilling to embark on research on top of their teaching schedules. But it has nothing to do with offering an alternate explanation for why non-researching bio professors are disproportionately underrepresented in scientific admin, or with hurting the story that university bigwigs are biased against appointing non-researching professors.
5% picked this
Biologists who hold scientific administrative
Strengthens, probably
This has no chance of having more impact than the correct answer, but if we learned that non-researching bio professors have much longer tenures on the admin board than other professors did, we might say, "Oh, author, if the university bigwigs are so biased against these non-researching bio professors, then how come those professors serve on the admin board longer than others do?" But this answer goes the other direction. It doesn't technically differentiate between non-researching bio professors and researching bio professors, so the answer has Unclear Impact, but since it's going in the wrong direction, it's not tempting.
7% picked this

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