Self-study
Passage A.
P1
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Intro to Popper ·
Power of negative evidence
A single black swan disproves that all swans are white
Asymmetry ·
Between positive and negative evidence
Positive evidence has no value
Requirements of Science ·
Search for negative evidence; making falsifiable predictions
P2
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Critique of Popper ·
Negative evidence is not as powerful as he believes
Premise ·
Theories have to work together to entail predictions
So a failed prediction means some theory is false, but it's unclear which one.
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P3
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Prediction ·
Orbit of Uranus
Multiple theories working together to entail the predictions. This can be framed as an application of Passage A.
Prediction ·
Failed
At least one of the theories is wrong.
Explanation ·
There's another planet
Scientists discovered Neptune.
P4
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Prediction ·
Orbit of Mercury
Prediction ·
Failed
Perhaps Newton's laws are incorrect or perhaps there's another planet.
Explanation ·
Newton's laws are incorrect
Einstein's general theory of relativity is more correct.
Passage Style
20.
Which one of the following ██ █ ███████ █████ ██ ████ █████████
a
the logical asymmetry ██ ████████ ███ ████████ ████████
This topic is dealt with in passage A but not passage B.
b
the role of █████████ ███████████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ██████
This topic isn’t dealt with in passage A.
c
the role of ████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████████
This is a central topic of passage A, which argues that negative evidence (observations that contradict a theory) isn’t as powerful as Popper said. This is also a central topi co passage B, which argues that negative evidence predicted the existence of Neptune (because observations of Uranus’s orbit contradicted theoretical calculations) and helped support the theory of relativity (because observations of Mercury’s contradicted Newton’s theory).
d
the proper technique ███ ██████████ █ ██████████ ██████
Passage A is more about the challenges of confirming a scientific theory than about the “proper technique.” Author A never actually points the existence of a proper technique. She just says that negative evidence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and things are more complicated. And passage B is too specific; it only looks at how one theory (Newton’s) was eventually replaced by another (Einstein’s) in part because of evidence about Mercury. It doesn’t get into what the “proper technique” is for confirming scientific theories in general.
e
the irrelevance of ███████████████ ███ ██████████ █ ██████████ ██████
Author A doesn’t discuss the “irrelevance” of experimentation. She says that when experiments fail, it’s not always immediately obvious why. But she doesn’t take any stance on whether experiments are outright irrelevant. That’s enough to eliminate (E). Meanwhile, author B doesn’t discuss experimentation in the first place.