Self-study
Science writer: Scientists' astounding success rate with research problems they have been called upon to solve causes the public to believe falsely that science can solve any problem. ██ █████ ███ ████████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ███████████ ████ ███ ████████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ████████ ████████ █████ ███████████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██ ████ █ ███ ██ ██ ████ ██████████ █████████ █████████ ██████████ ███ ██████ █████ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ████████████
Summary
Scientists appear to have a very high success rate at solving problems they’re called upon to solve, and this creates the false impression that scientists can solve any problem. But the apparently very high success rate is a result of scientists’ ability to pick the problems they solve or to formulate the problems they’re asked to solve in a way that makes a scientific solution possible. In other words, the kinds of problems they’re tackling are an unrepresentative sample of problems overall.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The high problem-solving success rate of scientists wouldn’t be as high if they tried to solve the entire set of problems.
The public overestimates the ability of scientists to solve problems.
22.
The science writer's statements, if █████ ████ ████████ ███████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
If a problem ███ ██ ██████████ ██ ████ █ ███ ██ ██ ████ █ ██████████ ████████ █████████ ██████████ ████ ███████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ████ ████████
Unsupported. Although many problem scientists are called upon to solve can be formulated in ways that make science solutions feasible, this doesn’t tell us about most of the problems that can be formulated in that way.
b
Any problem a █████████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ██████████ ██ ████ █ ███ ██ ██ ████ █ ██████████ ████████ █████████
Unsupported, because the stimulus doesn’t tell us about any problem a scientist can solve. We only know about problems scientists have been called upon to solve.
c
Scientists would probably ████ █ █████ ███████ ████ ████ ████████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████ ████████ ████ ████ ███████
Strongly supported, because we know that people have a false impression of scientists’ ability to solve problems from the success rate of problems they’re called upon to solve. These problems are likely unrepresentative set; success rate is likely higher for those problems.
d
Most of the ████████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ████ ███████████ ███ ████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ███ █████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████
Unsupported. We know that most problems scientists are called on to solve are selected by scientists. But we don’t know whether any portion of these are problems politicians and business leaders want solved.
e
The only reason ███ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ███ ████████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███████████
Antisupported, because we also know that part of the reason for the success rate is scientists’ ability to formulate the problem chosen by politicians and business leaders in a way that makes scientific solutions feasible.