Self-study
Support Scientific and technological discoveries have considerable effects on the development of any society. ██ ███████ ████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████ █████████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███ █████████████ █████████ ██ ████████████ ████████ ███ ████████████ ██████████████
Summary
The argument concludes that predictions of the future are particularly unreliable when they relate to societies with frequent scientific and technological discoveries. This is supported by the claim that scientific and technological discoveries have significant effects on how a society develops.
Notable Assumptions
The argument’s inference between discoveries impacting the future and the future being harder to predict when there are frequent discoveries only makes sense if discoveries make the future harder to predict. This means the argument must assume either that the discoveries themselves are difficult to predict, or that their effects are difficult to predict.
9.
The argument depends on assuming █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
Predictions of scientific ███ █████████████ ████████████ ██ ███████████ ██ █████ ████████ ████ ███████ ████████████ ██ ████ ██████████
The argument doesn’t depend on whether predictions are harmful or not—the conclusion is just about how reliable predictions are, not their consequences.
b
The development of █ ███████ ████████ ██████████ ███ █████████████ ████████████
The argument isn’t concerned with what it takes for a society to develop, only how reliable predictions are under certain conditions.
c
Forecasts of scientific ███ █████████████ ████████████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ████████ ███ ███ ████████ █████████
In other words, it is difficult to predict discoveries, or to predict their effects. Without this assumption, there would be no link between frequent discoveries and difficulty predicting the future, so this assumption is necessary for the argument to hold up.
d
An advanced scientific ███ █████████████ ███████ ██████████ ████████ ████ ███ ████████████
The consequences of discoveries are irrelevant to the argument, which is just focused on how discoveries impact the accuracy of future predictions.
e
It is not ██ █████████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ███ █████████████ ███████████ ██ █ ███████████████ ████ ████████ ███████ ██ ██ ██ ██ █ ███████████████ ████ ████████ ████████
Whether discoveries are easier or harder to predict in certain societies has no impact on the argument, which just generally claims that discoveries make predictions less accurate.