Among the many temptations

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Specific: used software4% picked this

   The scientists who submitted manipulated images were aware that the journal used software to examine digital images

   The author does seemingly need to assume that the submitting scientists who "committed fraud" were aware of the journal's guidelines and intentionally tried to work around them. But in order to commit fraud, you just need to have the intent to deceive. You don't need to have any awareness of what specific entity might call you out on your fraud on the other end. For example, in order for me to commit tax fraud, do I need to know whether a human or a software program is going to be analyzing my numbers at the I.R.S.? No, I just need to misrepresent what my numbers should actually say. Negating this answer and saying that the scientists aren't aware that a software tool is examining the images doesn't weaken the argument / doesn't help us argue that these scientists were not committing fraud.

   4%
2. B

   Too Strong6% picked this

   The journal requires that all articles submitted for publication include

   Too Strong: all Doesn't Address New Concept There's no reason this author needs to assume that the journal requires 100% of articles to include digital images. Would it hurt the argument if some articles were allowed to have analog images or no image at all? Of course not. It should also be a red flag to us that this answer isn't addressing the elephant in the room, the New Concept in the Conclusion of "scientific fraud".

   6%
3. C

   Too Strong4% picked this

   Scientific fraud is possible in the field of cellular biology only if the research is

   Too Strong: only if Reversed Logic, if anything Conditional-strength answers are often correct on modern Necessary Assumption questions, but we want to look at them as a conditional reasoning move and ask ourselves whether the argument ever made such a move. This rule looks like this: Sci fraud is possible → Research is documented in cellular biology w/ digital images This doesn't match the Premise to Conclusion move at all. If anything, it's closer to a Reversal. The conclusion is about the existence of "scientific fraud", so if this answer matched the author's reasoning, then "scientific fraud" would be on the right. If we contraposed this answer, then the right side would say "scientific fraud is impossible in cellular biology", which wouldn't match the conclusion (it would contradict it).

   4%
4. D

   Correct83% picked this

   Many of the scientists who submitted articles with manipulated images did so in order to misrepresent the information

   Why this is right

   Here we have an answer that actually addresses the New Concept in the Conclusion of "scientific fraud". How did the author go from "the images violated the journal's guidelines" to the much more malicious charge of "scientific fraud"? Couldn't violating guidelines just be accidental? The author must be assuming ill intent. She is assuming that at least many of these scientists who violated the guidelines intended to misrepresent the information conveyed by those images. If we negate this, we're saying "None, or practically, none of the scientists who submitted manipulated images did so in order to misrepresent what the image conveyed". If you don't have intent to misrepresent, then it's not fraud. And if none or practically none of the scientists what fraudulent intent, then that badly weakens the conclusion that "scientific fraud is a widespread problem". In the language of Explain Curious Fact arguments, we can say that this answer is establishing a baseline of plausibility for the author's explanation of why dozens of authors submitted images that violated the journal's manipulation guidelines.

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

   83%
5. E

   Too Strong3% picked this

   Scientific fraud is a widespread problem only among scientists who submit articles to journals

   Too Strong: only Only Thing Mentioned ≠ Only Thing There's no reason the author needs to assume that scientific fraud is only a widespread problem among authors submitting to journals of cellular biology. This is resurrecting the time honored trap answer tendency on Necessary Assumption of acting like the only thing the author mentioned is therefore the only thing (or the primary thing) to which it applied. It's like going from someone saying "Black lives matter" to the accusation that they're assuming "only black lives matter" or assuming "black lives matter the most".

   3%