noboru wrote:
Freud’s theories of the workings of the mind, while brilliant for their day, were formulated before most of this century’s great advances in neurophysiology and biochemistry. Today, we have a far deeper understanding of the biological components of thought, emotion, and behavior than was dreamed of eighty years ago. It would be foolish to continue parroting Freud’s psychological theories as if these advances had never occurred.
It can be inferred from the passage above that the author would be most likely to favor
(A) the abandonment of most of Freud’s theories
(B) a greater reliance on biological rather than psychological explanations of behavior
(C) a critical reexamination of Freud’s place in the history of psychology
(D) a reexamination of Freud’s theories in the light of contemporary biology
(E) increased financial support for studies in neurophysiology and biochemistry
OA (from another thread) is D
B cannot be correct because we see no evidence that this is the case. For all we know, the advances in biochem and neurophys debunked Freud, but are still worse than today's version of psychology. We just can't properly infer B.
We can, however, get D. The beginning of the passage is implying that Freud was great, but not as great as we thought, and that we need to reexamine our evaluation of his theories (thanks to advances in science).
Remember, we only hear about biochem et. al. in relation to Freud's theories. Claiming B from this passage is just too much of a stretch.