Subscription pricing
hi! (fair warning, this a question from is the genuinely tragic mirrors passage btw): for the life of me, i cannot figure out why c is the right choice for this one. i think it's largely because i literally just don't understand what the answer choice means. like genuinely sentence/word-wise i have no friggin clue.
on a theoretical level, i get that the idea of "separating observers from scientific phenomenon" as it's discussed in the text + how this informs the tendency of scientists to prefer certain explanations for phenomena. but i don't understand how that idea is conveyed by the words of answer choice c. answer c reads: "One explanation of what mirrors do reveals the traditional tendency of physicists to separate a phenomenon to be explained from the observer of a phenomenon."
i've been racking my head trying to parse the bolded part word-by-word but i genuinely can't figure it out. isn't the point the text is making that science ppl prefer explanations that don't rely on the observer? how does "separating a phenomenon •••to be explained••• from the observer of a phenomenon" do that?? if someone could even just help break down what this part means that would be useful lol. ty in advance (3(/p)
I don't think I love JY's explanation here/agree with his grounds for eliminating A. I don't think the problem is that the type of exercise is unspecified; I think that's being a bit uncharitable to the answer choice. The general spirit of A is that exercise may be a lurking variable that might explain the results of the study. So, I do think, to some extent, knowing whether routine exercisers are more likely to drink decaff coffee does somewhat help in evaluating the arguments' validity.
Even still, I think you could get to C, and my reasoning is twofold:
1. Even if exercisers are "more likely" to drink decaff drinks, that difference could be totally minor/an infinitesimal edge - say, they're .05% more likely to drink decaff as opposed to caffeinated drinks. So knowing this wouldn't be all that helpful in evaluating the argument, since the difference in arthiritis between the two groups is double/200%.
2. More importantly / subsequently, the question asks what would be most helpful in evaluating the argument. While A kinda helps, C would be a much more helpful thing to know - if caffeine contributes to the generation/degeneration of connective issue, then that would be a causal mechanism that explains the difference + would add credence to the causal claim being made by the argument. On the other hand, knowing whether A is true would leave us with many questions: Is the specific type of exercise done by decaff coffee drinks likely to lead to tissue damage? Are routine exercises prone to drink decaff coffee or other decaff drinks - like coke or other sodas? In other words - evaluating the argument remains rather difficult, even granting A.