Self-study
Conclusion Public health will improve more quickly in the wake of new medical discoveries if medical researchers abandon their practice of waiting until their findings are published in peer-reviewed journals before informing the press of important research results. ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ███████████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ █████ ███████ ███ ███ ███████████ ███████ ██ ███████████ ████ █████
Argument Breakdown
The argument concludes that improvements in public health will be speeded up if medical researchers skip peer-review and immediately release new results. In support, the argument explains that releasing new research enables people to then improve their health based on that information. However, peer-review is inherently very slow (so logically limits the rate of public health improvement).
Analysis: Causal Reasoning
This is a causal argument, proposing that skipping peer-review would cause a speedup in public health improvement, via the mechanism of people using new information to improve their health. At each step of the argument, there are assumptions built in that we can identify.
For example, the argument's proposed mechanism requires assuming that the press will publish non-peer-reviewed results, and that the public will use this information. And even if that were guaranteed, we'd need to assume that the results will still be useful for public health despite lacking the safeguards of peer-review.
Any assumption necessary to the argument can also be used to weaken. By undermining an assumption, the argument as a whole is undermined.
13.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
Peer review often ████████ ███ ███████████ ██ █████ ███████████ █████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███████ █████████
(A) attacks the argument's assumption that non-peer-reviewed information would actually be useful for public health. In doing so, (A) greatly weakens: what's the point of speedily releasing false information?
b
People often alter █████ ███████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ ██████
(B) affirms the argument's assumption that the public would actually act on non-peer-reviewed research results. This only strengthens the argument's causal mechanism.
c
Some improvements in ██████ ██████ ███ ███ ██ ███████ █████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████████████
Since we're specifically talking about how new medical information can improve public health, (C) just isn't relevant. Sure, there are other ways to improve health. But that has no bearing on whether public health improvements can also be speeded up by skipping peer-review.
d
Some newspapers would ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██████ █████ ███████ ████ ████████ ██ █████████████ █████████
Like (B), (D) affirms the causal mechanism proposed by the argument. This only strengthens the argument: if newspapers will publish non-peer-reviewed research, then it's even more accessible to the public.
e
Most peer-reviewed scientific ████████ █████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███████
The argument proposes going over journals' heads to directly inform the press, so it doesn't matter if journals refuse to give up peer-review.