Self-study
A large survey of scientists found that Support almost all accept Wang's Law, and Support almost all know the results of the Brown-Eisler Experiment. ███ █████ ███████ ████████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███ █████ ███████████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██████ ███ █████ ███████████
Summary
Most scientists surveyed reject the Minsk Hypothesis. Why? Because the vast majority are aware of a particular experiment, and the vast majority accept a particular law, and these two things combined contradict the Minsk Hypothesis.
Notable Assumptions
The author is trying to use the scientist’s knowledge of two particular things to conclude the rejection of a third thing (Minsk Hypothesis), because of an implication of combining the former two things (contradiction). But, we do not know if the scientists are aware of this contradiction. We know that they are aware of each thing independently, but we need to know that they are aware of the contradiction.
There is also a smaller assumption: Even if we do assume that the scientists are aware of the contradiction, there could still be reasons that the scientists choose to accept the Minsk Hypothesis.
18.
The argument requires assuming which ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
The scientists surveyed ███ █████████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ████████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███ █████ ███████████
This matches our prediction, and it must be true. If scientists are generally unaware of the contradiction, then the author’s support for the scientists rejecting the Minsk Hypothesis has been severed from the argument.
b
The scientists in ███ ██████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██████ ████
Too strong. It is required that there’s some overlap between these groups (this is already ensured because it’s two sets of “almost all”), but they do not have to be the exact same ones. J.Y.’s video explanation is strongly recommended here—visual representation will help.
c
Almost all of ███ ██████████ ████████ ███ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ████ █████████
The scientists don’t need to know a single thing about the methodology of the experiment. We know they are familiar with the results; we are concerned with their knowledge of what happens when the results are combined with Wang’s Law.
d
The sample is █████ ██████ ██ ██ ██████████████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████
The conclusion is only about the scientists that were surveyed, so we do not need the sample to be representative.
e
Wang's Law has ██ ████ ████ █████ ██ ██ █████
The scientists accept Wang’s law whether it has been proven or not. We are trying to support that the scientists are anti-hypothesis based on their acceptance of this law; it doesn’t matter if it’s true.
Also, if it hasn’t been shown to be true, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.