Original statement:
it is rational not to acquire such info unless one expects that the benefits of doing so will outweigh the cost and difficulty of doing so
Two ideas:
rational not acquire info
expects benefits outweigh c&d
Group 3 Rule: negate sufficient
[not] expects benefits outweigh c&d --> rational not acquire info
Contrapositive:
[not] rational not acquire info --> expects benefits outweigh c&d
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.