Self-study
Passage A.
P1
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Context ·
Evolutionary psychology is a lens to explain human behavior
Human behavior is explained by how it contributes to the reproductive success of individuals exhibiting that behavior.
Problem / Phenonemon ·
What's the explanation for altruism?
Altruism is behavior that seems to benefit others at one's own expense.
P2
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Answer / Hypothesis ·
Psychology of identification and empathy
Because humans share genes with relatives, altruistic behavior could have arisen because it helped spread those genes. E.g., mother rushing to help a child promotes the survival of their shared genes.
P3
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Answer / Hypothesis ·
Altruism applied to groups and later even to larger communities
Altruism could have applied at the group level since kin share genes. Later, it could have applied to non-kin community
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P4
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Skepticism ·
about evolutionary psychology
A parent's interest in helping their child is just that. There's no need to explain it in terms of genes conspiring to propagate themselves.
P5
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Monogamy ·
as explained via evolutionary psychology
Human offspring are slow to mature. Hence, to ensure their maturity and the spread of genes, humans form monogamous families. Presumably monogamous families are better able to raise offspring to maturity.
P6
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Skepticism ·
of evolutionary psychology's explanation
Author acknowledges that the evolutionary psychology explanation could be right but there are alternative explanations. Author requires the elimination of other explanations. Author believes that some motives don't require further scrutiny, e.g., a parent's motive to promote a child's well-being.
Passage Style
17.
How does the purpose of ███████ █ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███████ ██
a
The author of ███████ █ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ █ ██ ██████████ ██████████ █████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ███████
(A) gets Passage B’s purpose completely wrong. Passage B criticizes Passage A.
b
The author of ███████ █ ██████████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ █ ██ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████ ████████ ████ █ ██████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██████
The first half of (B) sounds like exactly what we want, but the second half misdescribes Passage B’s approach. Passage B never comes up with an analogous argument, and doesn’t show that anything is “clearly false.” Instead, Passage B criticizes Passage A’s argument by suggesting that there are alternative explanations for behavior besides those based on genes’ interest in spreading. Suggesting that there are alternative explanations doesn’t establish that the initial explanation offered by Passage A is clearly false – only that it might be false.
c
The author of ███████ █ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ █ ██ █████ ███████ ████ ██████████ ████████████
(C) misdescribes Passage B’s approach. Passage B never argues that the evidence used in Passage A (observations of human behaviors) is often inaccurate. That would involve Passage B saying that the observations used are wrong – that humans don’t actually behave in the ways that Passage A says they do. But that’s not what Passage B does. Instead, Passage B accepts that humans behave in the ways described by Passage A, but suggests that there are alternative explanations for those behaviors besides those related to genes.
d
The author of ███████ █ █████████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ █ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ████████ ████████ █████ ███████ ██ ██████████ █████
Passage B never suggests that “no possible evidence could confirm or disconfirm” the claims in Passage A. In fact, Passage B describes what would be required to confirm the claims in Passage A and acknowledges that it’s
Also, Passage B doesn’t say that Passage A’s claims are impossible to confirm or disconfirm; Passage B merely provides alternate explanations for human behavior.
e
The author of ███████ █ █████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ █ ██ ██████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████████ ██████████
The first half of (E) fits well. Passage B does try to undermine the kind of argument made in Passage A – an evolutionary psychology argument proposing that certain human behavior is explained by genes’ interest in self-propagation.
And, the second half of (E) is accurate. Passage B argues that there are alternative explanations for human behavior – we shouldn’t immediately jump to the gene explanation when human behavior might be explained by a direct interest in engaging in that behavior.