PT111.S2.P3.Q19 > Analytics

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Philosophers of science have long been uneasy with biology, preferring instead to focus on physics. ███

Phenomenon · Philosophers of science prefer physics to biology

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Explanation · Because they mistrust uncertainty

Science is supposed to be about what is universally true. Hence, philosophers of science are interested in the fact that elephants and mice fall at the same rate but not why one is big and another small.

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Biologists 1 · try to emulate physicists by asserting that laws of biology are universal too

E.g., all DNA evolves at a constant clocklike rate

Biologists 2 · question whether biology is universal

Perhaps historical contingency is necessarily a part of biology.

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Illustration of Disagreement · "All planets move in ellipses" v. "All swans are white."

"All planets move in ellipses" is a truly universal claim. Its truth depends only on the laws of physics and hence apply to all planets that exist or could exist.

Biologists 1 · Universal interpretation

These biologists (determinists) claim that "All swans are white" is also universal. Because the laws of natural selection guarantee that outcome.

Biologists 2 · Non-universal interpretation

These biologists (nondeterminists) disagree. They interpret the claim as a matter of historical contingency, not as a necessary truth.

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Conclusion · History of evolutionary theory is the history of struggle between these two competing views

Passage Style

Critique or debate

19.

It can be inferred from ███ ███████ ████ ███████████ ██████████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ███████ █████ ██████████ ███████ ████

Question Type

Implied

This is an Inference question about the beliefs of the determinist biologists. We see in P2 that the determinist biologists have tried to emulate physicists because they agree with the intellectual disapproval for things that are particular (rather than universal). This shows that the determinist biologists think that biology, like physics, needs universal laws.

the methods of ██████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████████████

Unsupported. The passage never mentions what nonscientists can easily understand.

physicists have been ████████ ████ ███████ ██ █████ ██████ ██████████ ████ ████ ██████████

Unsupported. We know that philosophers of science in particular prefer physics to biology, but we don’t know which field is more widely respected by scientists in general.

biology can only ██ ██████████ █ ████ ███████ ██ █████████ ████ ███ ██ ███████████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████

The philosophers of science think that true sciences need universal laws, and P2 says that some evolutionary biologists (the determinists) have agreed with the intellectual disapproval for the particular (as opposed to the universal). In emulating physicists, the determinists are trying to find universal laws for biology so that biology can be considered a true science.

82%

the specific laws ████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ██ ███████ ██ ██████████ █████████

Unsupported. Determinist biologists want to emulate physics by applying universal laws to biology in general, not by borrowing specific laws, like those explaining planetary motion, and applying them directly to biology.

12%

all scientific endeavors ███████ ████ ████████████ ████████ ███████ ███████ ██████████ ███████████

Unsupported. The passage doesn’t indicate that all scientific endeavors benefit from cross-discipline exchange. The passage doesn’t make this kind of extreme statement.

PrepTest 111 - Section 2 - Passage 3 - Question 19

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