Philosopher: Scientists talk about the pursuit of truth, but like most

Question

Philosopher: Scientists talk about the pursuit of truth, but like most people, they are self-interested. Accordingly, the professional activities of most scientists are directed toward personal career enhancement, and only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth. Hence, the activities of the scientific community are largely directed toward enhancing the status of that community as a whole, and only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth.

The reasoning in the philosopher’s argument is flawed because the argument

(A) improperly infers that each and every scientist has a certain characteristic from premise that most scientists have that characteristic

(B) improperly draws an inference about the scientific community as a whole from a premise about individual scientists

(C) presumes, without giving justification, that the aim of personal career enhancement never advances the pursuit of truth

(D) illicitly takes advantage of an ambiguity in the meaning of “self-interested”

(E) improperly draws an inference about a cause from premises about its effects

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

Scientists are self-interested. 
So, the professional activities of most scientists are directed toward personal career enhancement, and only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth.

Conclusion: activities of the scientific community are largely directed toward enhancing the status of that community as a whole, and only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth.

By saying that individual scientists are directed towards personal growth, the philosopher is concluding that the community is directed towards enhancing the status of the community (in both cases, pursuit of truth is supposed to be incidental - just happening by chance alongside)

(A) improperly infers that each and every scientist has a certain characteristic from premise that most scientists have that characteristic

The philosopher does not conclude that every scientist has that characteristic. He talks about the community as a whole.

(B) improperly draws an inference about the scientific community as a whole from a premise about individual scientists

Correct. He draws an inference about the community from a premise about individual scientists. If each individual scientist is working towards personal growth, does it mean the community is working towards enhancing the status of the community - may not be so. If each individual scientist works for his growth only, it might be detrimental to the community's status, we don't know. 
So we cannot conclude about the community from the given premises about individuals.

(C) presumes, without giving justification, that the aim of personal career enhancement never advances the pursuit of truth

The philosopher does not say that personal enhancement does not advance the pursuit of truth. He says that pursuit of truth is incidental - i.e. it just happens alongside though the intent is personal enhancement only.

(D) illicitly takes advantage of an ambiguity in the meaning of “self-interested”

No ambiguity in meaning

(E) improperly draws an inference about a cause from premises about its effects

No cause-effect

Answer (B)

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

This argument contains an error of composition, one where the status-enhancing activities of most scientists are said to prove that the scientific community as a whole acts to enhance its status.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice describes a compositional error, but not the one that occurs in the stimulus. The stimulus makes a judgment about the scientific community as a whole whereas this answer states that a judgment is made about each and every scientist. The community as a whole is different than each and every scientist, and thus this answer is incorrect. If you are thinking about the difference between the community as a whole and each member within the community, consider this statement: “Our community is against stealing.” While that may be true, there may also be individual members of the community who are thieves and have no qualm about stealing.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer , and the answer describes the correct compositional error made by the philosopher.

Answer choice (C): The answer is wrong—the author does not presume that the aim of personal career enhancement never advances the pursuit of truth. Consider the second sentence: “Accordingly, the professional activities of most scientists are directed toward personal career enhancement, and only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth. The portion that states “only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth” indicates that the author allows for the possibility that career-enhancement activities can result in activities that pursue truth, even if only a little bit. But, since that contradicts the force of never, this answer is incorrect. This is the most frequently chosen wrong answer, as about 20% of test takers select this choice.

Answer choice (D): This answer choice describes the Uncertain Use of a Term. The term “self-interested” is used only once in the argument (at the end of the first sentence), and the remainder of the argument is consistent with the generally accepted meaning of “self-interested” and uses that meaning unambiguously.

Answer choice (E): The argument in the stimulus is about the relationships of parts and wholes, not about cause and effect. This answer, which describes reasoning from an effect in order to infer its cause, is therefore incorrect. An example of the reasoning described in this answer choice would be: “We know this window was broken this afternoon, and only one pane of the window was broken. We also know the pane was broken by a circular object. Therefore, a baseball was the cause of the broken window.

Gnpth · Answer

This is one type of flaw where it fails to consider the complete picture. The philosopher 1st talks about the individual scientists and their talks about pursuit of truth.

But in the end, he concludes that the whole scientific community is like that, which may not be true.

For example, we cannot come to a conclusion that whole group acts the same way based on few individuals in the group.

(A) improperly infers that each and every scientist has a certain characteristic from premise that most scientists have that characteristic-  Incorrect. it says Individuals has the characteristic since most of them as that- Kind of opposite

(B) improperly draws an inference about the scientific community as a whole from a premise about individual scientists-  Correct- This is what we came up when we understood the passage.

(C) presumes, without giving justification, that the aim of personal career enhancement never advances the pursuit of truth-  Irrelevant- We don't need any justifications here. i.e., No need of any external information.

(D) illicitly takes advantage of an ambiguity in the meaning of “self-interested”-  This did not occur in the stimulus, hence it is incorrect.

(E) improperly draws an inference about a cause from premises about its effects-  Same as D.

Raman109 · Answer

Philosopher: Scientists talk about the pursuit of truth, but like most people, they are self-interested. - Premise/opinion.

Accordingly, the professional activities of most scientists are directed toward personal career enhancement, and only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth. - claim

Hence, the activities of the scientific community are largely directed toward enhancing the status of that community as a whole, and only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth. - Conclusion.

Basically most scientists does this so the whole scientific community does it - thats the flaw.

The reasoning in the philosopher’s argument is flawed because the argument

(A) improperly infers that each and every scientist has a certain characteristic from premise that most scientists have that characteristic - "each and every scientist" is out of scope.

(B) improperly draws an inference about the scientific community as a whole from a premise about individual scientists - Yes.

(C) presumes, without giving justification, that the aim of personal career enhancement never advances the pursuit of truth - No. The argument says that its does incidentally.

(D) illicitly takes advantage of an ambiguity in the meaning of “self-interested” - not relevant.

(E) improperly draws an inference about a cause from premises about its effects - Basically infer the cause from the effect. Say for example the effect is that light is gone, and we draw an inference that it must be becasue of heavy winds outside, which is just a claim without any justification. Not happening here.

Philosopher: Scientists talk about the pursuit of truth, but like most

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Philosopher: Scientists talk about the pursuit of truth, but like most

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