Q21 - Scientist: Isaac Newton's Principia

[Celeste757]

Hello,

I got this one down to C and D, and picked C (wrong).

I think I messed up because I thought the conclusion to this was in the middle, the "barriers are not impermeable." thinking that this was the conclusion, i thought C made sense. is C wrong because of the word "evidence" (i guess the modern day example is just an example, not evidence?) and then D is correct because it says the modern example is a claim which links the newton example to the final conclusion (so the final conclusion, then, is not what i thought but is that recent scientific research will become part of everyone's heritage?)

thank you!!

[lhermary]

Yes, help on this one would be much appreciated. It was between B and D for me. Why is B wrong?

Thanks

[alana.canfield]

Yes, help on this one would be much appreciated. It was between B and D for me. Why is B wrong?

I think (B) is wrong because it says that it supports the conclusion "by suggesting that the RESULTS of recent scientific research are only superficially different from claims made in Newton's Principia". The results of the research are not what is being suggested as similar; the way those results are integrated into our common knowledge is being suggested as similar. The actual experimental results themselves may be very different.

is C wrong because of the word "evidence" (i guess the modern day example is just an example, not evidence?)

I think (C) is wrong firstly because the statement that "recent scientific research can often be described only in language that seems esoteric to most contemporary readers" does not support the conclusion that "barriers to communication between scientists and the public are not impermeable". If anything, it seems to go against that conclusion by displaying a very large barrier in communication because it says the only way to communicate the scientific research is through esoteric language. The second thing that is fishy about (C) is that I would have expected them to use the word "subconclusion", since the conclusion they cited is not the main conclusion.

Answer (D) makes sense because it links the first part of the passage about Newton's teachings eventually becoming understood throughout the world despite being initially difficult for people to understand, to the conclusion that "recent scientific research.... may also become part of everyone's intellectual heritage". If we take out the claim cited in the question stem, the argument seems to be missing something, which is the link that this claim provides.

As a side note, I think it is interesting to note that the question stimulus calls this excerpt a "claim" and the only answer choice that calls it a "claim" is (D), the correct one.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Interesting side note Alana! I doubt that was intentional on the part of the LSAT, but who knows!!

Great explanation, thanks!

[Nina]

interesting but ironically, i firstly eliminate answer D because of the wording "claim", since i didn't notice this wording in the question stem. I thought the part in question, namely "recent scientific research can often be described only in language that seems esoteric to most contemporary readers" is a fact, or a phenomenon observed by the author; and "claim" needs to be close to "opinion" or "conclusion". Am i wrong about this point?

Thanks a lot!

[ban2110]

I just want to make sure I've got this down but is the conclusion: "Thus recent scientific research may also become part of everyone's intellectual heritage"?

And the claim: "recent scientific research can often be describe only in language that seems esoteric to most contemporary readers" serves to connect the previous premise about Newton to the conclusion?

[Ellesat]

I had the same question as Nina. Could someone please explain this and also why A is wrong? Thanks.

interesting but ironically, i firstly eliminate answer D because of the wording "claim", since i didn't notice this wording in the question stem. I thought the part in question, namely "recent scientific research can often be described only in language that seems esoteric to most contemporary readers" is a fact, or a phenomenon observed by the author; and "claim" needs to be close to "opinion" or "conclusion". Am i wrong about this point?

Thanks a lot!

[ohthatpatrick]

"claim" is a neutral idea. It could refer to fact or opinion. You're correct that it's normally used with opinions, but according to Dictionary.com a claim is "an assertion of something as fact". This leaves flexibility for whether that claim really IS a fact or whether someone is merely expressing an opinion as though it's a fact.

Let me put up a complete explanation for this one.

=============

Question Type: Determine the Function

Correct answer: D

Argument Core:
Conc - Recent science may one day be part of everyday understanding
why?
Prem - Even though recent science uses really inaccessible language, the same type of thing happened back in Newton's day with his science breakthroughs, but eventually people had an understanding of his ideas.

What's our claim doing?
Well it's not the conclusion. Does it support/oppose/neutral?

It kinda opposes, hence the reason I prefaced it with even though. So it's sort of a counterpoint, or anticipated objection.

If I were describing it in everyday language, I'd probably say "this claim is when the author is saying, 'See? Modern science is just as hard to us as Newtonian science was to Newton's contemporaries.'"

==== answer choices ===

(A) It IS kind of a potential objection. It definitely undermines the conclusion. But the author volunteered this idea. He didn't raise it as someone else's objection, and he doesn't shoot it down.

The author accepts that modern science is very inaccessible. He's just arguing that one day we may understand it.

If I say, "it's cloudy now, but it may be sunny later." I'm not raising an objection and then calling it into question. I'm just admitting to the truth of "it's cloudy now" and then saying "the same might not be true later".

(B) Not a premise. We can stop reading there. Does this make any sense?
Conc - Modern science may one day be understood by everyone
why?
Prem - because Modern science is currently inaccessible to most people
No.

(C) "cited as further evidence" = premise. We can stop reading. If we kept reading, we'd see that this also misidentifies the conclusion.

(D) Yeah, this works. The conclusion is about modern science being understood by everyone. What does the discussion about Newtonian science in the 17th century have to do with that? Our claim helps show the similarity: Newtonian science was inaccessible at first but later became popularly understood. So the same might happen for modern science. (Correct answer)

(E) This is the opposite of (D). It says that our claim is meant to undermine the similarity between Newtonian science and modern science.

Hope this helps.

[Ellesat]

Thank you, that helped a lot.

[AyakiK696]

So, just to clarify, a "claim" can be a neutral idea, whereas a premise is always a supporting statement? I thought that premises just referred to any sort of statement that is made in an argument?

[ohthatpatrick]

Correct.

Premise/Evidence = specifically means SUPPORTING idea.

A 'claim' means 'a sentence' (or basically 'an independent clause').