Self-study
Support If the government increases its funding for civilian scientific research, private patrons and industries will believe that such research has become primarily the government's responsibility. ████ ████ ███████ ████ ████████ ██ ██ ██████ █████████ █████ ███████████████ ███████ ███████ ███ ████████████████ ████████ █████ █████████████ ██████ █████████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ████ ██████████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████████ ███ ███ ████████
Summary
The author concludes that, in order to prevent the overall level of research funding from decreasing, the government should not increase its funding. This is because the government increasing its funding would cause private funding to decrease.
Notable Assumptions
In order for an increase in government funding to cause a decrease in overall funding, the government’s increase in funding would have to be less than the resulting decrease in private funding. The support only establishes that an increase in government funding would cause a decrease in private funding, but the relative amounts are never established.
The argument relies on the assumption that the government funding would provide less money than would be withdrawn by private funders.
2.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ███████
a
Governments should bear ███ ████████ ██ ███ █████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████████ █████████
The conclusion is that the government should not increase its funding for research, so the argument has no need to assume that the government bears any responsibility for funding.
b
Any increase in ██████████ ███████ █████ ████████ ████ ███████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████████ ████████ ████ ██ █████ ████████
This describes how, in order for the conclusion to follow, it must be true that the government would provide less money than would be withdrawn by the private parties. If this weren’t true, then the government’s increase in funding could increase overall funding.
c
Private donations toward ████████ ███ ██ ██████ ████████ ██ ███████████ █████ ████ ████████ ██████████ ████████
The support already establishes that private funding will decrease when government funding increases. The author doesn’t need to assume that all private funding will be rejected.
d
Civilian scientific research ██████ ██ █████████ ███████████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████
Whether the research is efficient or not is irrelevant. The author only claims that the government should not increase its funding because overall funding would decrease if it did.
e
Funding for civilian ██████████ ████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████████ ██████
The author claims that overall funding will decrease if the government increases its funding, but funding doesn’t need to be at its maximum in order for this to happen.