If a civilization as technologically

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: generally1% picked this

   Scientists who are searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life forms generally focus their search on evidence of

   It doesn't matter to this author whether scientists who search for alien life spend 51% of their time looking for technologically advanced life forms and 49% of their time looking for simpler forms of life, or vice versa. So the author doesn't need to assume anything about what scientists generally do. The word/concept of "most" is wrong on Necessary Assumption 99% of the time. It's only needed when the conclusion is using the concept of most. This conclusion is talking about whether something is possible.

   1%
2. B

   Illegal Negation / Fake Opposite1% picked this

   There is no reason to doubt the possibility that there are technologically advanced civilizations on planets more than

   One of the top 3 wrong answer patterns on Necessary Assumption is this idea of a Fake Opposite. We usually use "illegal negation" to mean taking a conditional like, "If in NY, then in USA" and flipping the lightswitch on the truth values to illegally arrive at the notion that, "If not in NY, then not in USA". A Fake Opposite is basically doing the same "flipping the lightswitch" inversion, but it's doing it to a claim that felt more like a fact and less like a conditional rule. If we're told that, "Jim bought a lot of food when he went shopping with his sister", then a Fake Opposite trap answer would say, "Jim doesn't buy a lot of food when he isn't shopping with his sister (or, 'when he shops by himself', or 'when he shops with his brother')". The conclusion said, "There's no hope of finding smart aliens closer than 50 light years", so this Fake Opposite is giving us, "There is utmost confidence of finding smart aliens farther than 50 light years".

   1%
3. C

   Too Strong: decipher fully / all messages4% picked this

   If scientists received a message from a technologically advanced civilization on another planet, they would be able

   There's no reason to think this author believes that we humans would be able to decipher every single part of every single message we would receive from a technologically advanced alien civilization. What a crazy idea for anyone to say. The author hasn't affiliated herself with this indefensible notion.

   4%
4. D

   Correct90% picked this

   A technologically advanced civilization on another planet would want to communicate with intelligent life that

   Why this is right

   The author is assuming that, "If there were really smart aliens nearby, they could contact us (and would have already. They haven't contacted us yet.) Thus, there aren't smart aliens nearby." That part about thinking, "if they could contact us, they would have already" is what this answer is getting at. The author assumes that a smart alien that found evidence of us and who had the means to contact us would contact us. If we negate this and tell him that smart aliens would not want to contact us, it hurts his argument. It allows us to say that, "the fact that smart/nearby aliens haven't contacted us doesn't mean they don't exist; it could just mean that they have observed us but don't have any desire to contact us."

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

   90%
5. E

   Too Strong: all signs3% picked this

   Intelligent life forms on other planets would be able to recognize all signs of intelligent

   There's no reason to think this author believes that aliens would understand every single possible sign of intelligent life. They might see people flying kites they've built, and have no idea that this is a sign of intelligent life. It might just look like a winged creature hovering in mid-air. If we negated this and said, "Hey, author, aliens would only be able to interpret about 99% of what we do as signs of intelligent life", that wouldn't hurt the argument at all.

   3%