Modern science is built on the process of posing hypotheses and testin

Question

Modern science is built on the process of posing hypotheses and testing them against observations—in essence, attempting to show that the hypotheses are incorrect. Nothing brings more recognition than overthrowing conventional wisdom. It is accordingly unsurprising that some scientists are skeptical of the widely accepted predictions of global warming. What is instead remarkable is that with hundreds of researchers striving to make breakthroughs in climatology, very few find evidence that global warming is unlikely. The information above provides the most support for which one of the following statements?

(A) Most scientists who are reluctant to accept the global warming hypothesis are not acting in accordance with the accepted standards of scientific debate.
(B) Most researchers in climatology have substantial motive to find evidence that would discredit the global warming hypothesis.
(C) There is evidence that conclusively shows that the global warming hypothesis is true.
(D) Scientists who are skeptical about global warming have not offered any alternative hypotheses to explain climatological data.
(E) Research in global warming is primarily driven by a desire for recognition in the scientific community.

Source: LSAT

dave13 · Answer

Since researchers are motivated to overthrow conventional wisdom that is widely accepted , it means that most researchers are motivated to overthrow this conventional wisdom by trying to find evidence and thus discredit it.

Option B says that Most researchers in climatology have substantial motive to find evidence that would discredit the global warming hypothesis.

Moreover, this sentence :
What is instead remarkable is that with hundreds of researchers striving to make breakthroughs in climatology, very few find evidence that global warming is unlikely.
clearly re-confirms option B

hence IMO B

ballest127 · Answer

Hi Experts,

I'm not sure where in the passage indicate that "most" researchers have motive to find.....?

Please explain.

Thank you very much.

AkshayC95 · Answer

souvik101990  
Buddy, can you please look into this problem. 
The passage mentions "What is instead remarkable is that with hundreds of researchers striving to make breakthroughs in climatology, very few find evidence that global warming is unlikely.", whereas option B states "Most researchers in climatology have substantial motive to find evidence that would discredit the global warming hypothesis.". 
 I am not able to connect these two statements.  
Statement in the passage says "Out of people who are trying to make it big in a certain department only a few have evidence in opposition to global warming. 
And Answer choice B states " Lot of researchers are motivated to discredit Global Warming"

prakhar992 · Answer

How can option "B" be correct. hundreds of researchers do not mean "most". Please explain this video.

AkshayC95 · Answer

Buddy, can you please look into this problem.
The passage mentions "What is instead remarkable is that with hundreds of researchers striving to make breakthroughs in climatology, very few find evidence that global warming is unlikely.", whereas option B states "Most researchers in climatology have substantial motive to find evidence that would discredit the global warming hypothesis.".
I am not able to connect these two statements.
Statement in the passage says "Out of people who are trying to make it big in a certain department only a few have evidence in opposition to global warming.
And Answer choice B states " Lot of researchers are motivated to discredit Global Warming"

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Hi Akshay

Let me try to clarify your doubt.

We are asked to identify that answer option for which support is found in the information provided in the stimulus. Answer option (B) states: Most researchers in climatology have substantial motive to find evidence that would discredit the global warming hypothesis.

Support for this statement is found not in the statement you have mentioned ("...very few find evidence that global warming is unlikely"). It is found earlier in the stimulus, where it states: "Nothing brings more recognition than overthrowing conventional wisdom".

If we accept the reasonable assumption that most scientists would like to obtain recognition for their work, it flows logically that most of them would like to disprove the likelihood of global warming. That likelihood of global warming is the "conventional wisdom" is explicitly mentioned in the stimulus wherein it states: "It is accordingly unsurprising that some scientists are skeptical of the  widely accepted predictions of global warming ".

Thus option (B) is best supported by information presented in the stimulus.

Hope this clarifies.

ManifestDreamMBA · Answer

Sharing my thoughts. Would love for someone to share their thoughts especially on answer choice B

Passage:
Modern science is built on the process of posing hypotheses and testing them against observations—in essence, attempting to show that the hypotheses are incorrect. -  In modern science, people try to prove hypothesis incorrect by testing them against observations 
Nothing brings more recognition than overthrowing conventional wisdom ( here conventional wisdom = hypothesis )
It is accordingly unsurprising that some scientists are skeptical of the widely accepted predictions of global warming. -  It's not surprising that - some scientists are skeptical of the widely accepted predictions of global warming (global warming being conventional wisdom) 
What is instead remarkable is that with hundreds of researchers striving to make breakthroughs in climatology, very few find evidence that global warming is unlikely. -  It is surprising that of the huge number of scientists trying to prove idea of global warming happening incorrect, very few find evidence that global warming is not going to happen

(A) Most scientists who are reluctant to accept the global warming hypothesis are not acting in accordance with the accepted standards of scientific debate. 
 This doesn't seem supported by the statements. some scientists are in fact trying to find the truth about global warming 
 (B) Most researchers in climatology have substantial motive to find evidence that would discredit the global warming hypothesis. 
 Having substantial motive to find evidence that would discredit the global warming hypothesis has been justified by the passage. My doubt was on 2 things -  Most researchers  and  researchers in climatology . All we know there are hundreds of researchers. Also we will need to assume that researchers in climatology are scientists - what if researchers are part of scientists' teams. However since other choices are eliminated, can chose this 
 (C) There is evidence that conclusively shows that the global warming hypothesis is true. 
 All we know is there is very little evidence to support the notion that it is unlikely. It's likelihood is not mentioned in the passage 
 (D) Scientists who are skeptical about global warming have not offered any alternative hypotheses to explain climatological data. 
 We do not know if the scientists have offered any alternate hypothesis. All we know is that they have found very little evidence to support the notion that it is unlikely. 
 (E) Research in global warming is primarily driven by a desire for recognition in the scientific community. 
 We don't know if recognition is the only factor or there are other factors as well for the research in global warming

bb · Answer

Thank you for the question. Of answer choice B, I was torn between B and D, at least after the first reading. I was not thrilled with either one.

I did not have any issues with scientist or researchers and took them to mean the same people. I think it’s a bit of a weakness of a question that uses these terms interchangeably but I didn’t jump out at me. Usually GMAT and LSAT questions will not use such dirty tricks such as mixing terms for the same profession and then distinguishing just just barely.

I hope this helps.

ManifestDreamMBA · Answer

Thanks bb for the prompt reply. Understood your comment on the terms being used interchangeably. Any thoughts on the modifier most at the start of option B? I wasn't also convinced with the term substantial but still went ahead with it because of the second statement -  Nothing brings more recognition than overthrowing conventional wisdom

bb · Answer

What made you feel uncomfortable about most researchers? What in the word most you felt was out of bounds?

PS. I thought there was a true enough statement and GMAT tends to use terms like most in the correct answers to avoid extremes and leave some room for unexpected scenario to speak so there will almost never say All (there are exceptions of course in certain question types)

ManifestDreamMBA · Answer

I was thinking most is majority, something more than 50%, but with just 100s of researchers, we cannot justify most. I was thinking it would have been better with Some or at least some, something on those lines

bb · Answer

I feel you can justify it. We’re told that all researchers are highly motivated to disprove a common belief (we have to also pair this with the statement that researchers are striving to make breakthroughs).

Once you assume that all researchers look for recognition then hundreds of researchers doesn’t matter. We’re just given the magnitude number. This number doesn’t matter however because we were already told that all researchers look for recognition and this is just supposed to help us realize that there is a large number of people working on this problem because it says “with hundreds” which is a subtle way of saying many or a “significant number”

However, your discomfort is not inappropriate. It doesn’t seem to quite fit really well and seems like the argument is somewhat in perfect... there are some assumptions we have to make and I would say this is less desirable question and not the best example of LSAT.

ManifestDreamMBA · Answer

Thanks for sharing your thoughts bb. I will leave this here, given you have mentioned that this might not be a great question.

My confusion arose from the jumping quantifier as highlighted below, but will keep a look out (or probably be open to some exceptions to these quantifiers in case other answer choices aren't even close).  Really appreciate you answering this! Thanks again

Nothing brings more recognition than overthrowing conventional wisdom (say this is   all  ). It is accordingly unsurprising that   some   scientists are skeptical of the widely accepted predictions of global warming. What is instead remarkable is that with   hundreds of researchers   striving to make breakthroughs in climatology, very few find evidence that global warming is unlikely.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

ManifestDreamMBA

I think the word "most" may just be a distractor here. What if we replaced it with "all"? Could we support that? As bb has pointed out, if overthrowing a well-accepted view would bring recognition, then researchers have an incentive to do that. We could probably argue that all researchers have that incentive, but the answer uses "most" to soften it. Maybe there are a few researchers whose reputation is already staked on the existing hypothesis, or who don't need any additional recognition. So sure, for them there's no motivation to overturn the hypothesis, but for everyone else there is. That's where the "most" comes in.

Notice that none of this depends on the last sentence. That sentence is making a completely different point that doesn't connect to our answer. It's saying that despite these motivations, we still haven't seen much to overturn the existing beliefs. This sets the author up to argue that the existing predictions about global warming are accurate, but they never actually make that argument. The test writers are using a bit of misdirection--they set up one thing, but the only valid inference they give us is about an underlying point, not the overall thrust of the argument. In any case, we don't need to worry about the "hundreds." We don't have any other numbers to compare that to, so it's not part of how we get to "most." It's just a way to say that there are plenty of people working to find that contrary evidence.

Modern science is built on the process of posing hypotheses and testin

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