Q24 - Statistician: Changes in the Sun's

[peg_city]

Why is A right? What generalization are they talking about?

Thanks

[chike_eze]

Why is A right? What generalization are they talking about?

Thanks

I must admit, when I read the Statistician's argument, I thought-- yes, for sure, the Meteorologist will say something like "I disagree because correlation does not imply causation" or something to that effect.

But instead, the meteorologist refutes the Statistician's argument by stating, by way of a principle, that "the climate is too significant to be controlled by only the sun"

In this case, the Meteorologist supports his rejection of the Statistician's conclusion by stating a general principle.

To be honest, I arrived at (A) by process of elimination, and verification after eliminating all other choices.

On review, (A) is correct because "specific conclusion" = disagreement with statistician's conclusion, and "invoking relevant generalization" = general principle that "no significant aspect can be controlled by a single variable".

(B) "counterexample" -- none was given
(C) "correlation... single cause" -- Meteorologist did not argue this point (even though at first, I did expect him to touch on this)
(D) "experimentally tested" -- Not even close! First one to go.
(E) "unfavorable evidence" -- Nothing said about unfavorable evidence

[shirando21]

but how does A support the conclusion?

[demetri.blaisdell]

Thanks for the explanation, chike_eze. Also, great that you are following up, shirando21. You're right to say that not only do the 4 wrong answers have to be wrong but the right answer has to be right.

(A) is a tricky answer choice because it uses that general wording. But don't be pushed around by those answer choices. Match it up!

Does the meteorologist make a conclusion about a specific case? Yes: the specific case she is discussing is the connection between luminosity and land temperatures.

Has she invoked a generalization? Yes: the generalization is that each individual part of any system as complicated as meteorology has to be complicated also.

Was the generalization relevant? Yes: it's about climate, which relates to luminosity and land temperatures quite closely.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions. And thanks for posting, as always.

Demetri

[MeganL677]

I stuck btw A and E. And still I can't figure out why E is incorrect.

I chose E because I thought, from "no significant aspect can be controlled by a single variable", the Meteorologist is actually warning the statistician: "you neglected all other variables/ evidence except for the sun's luminosity!!!"

Is it wrong because the Meteorologist doesn't POINT OUT, but merely IMPLY what I wrote above..?

Though the last poster's years ago.....
Help please!!

[enrikque]

MeganL677, I agree with you that the Meteorologist's response could imply that data was ignored.

However, (E) would still be a hard sell because in my mind, (E) goes beyond implying data was ignored. (E) ends with "...has been systematically neglected." So if (E) was correct, that would mean the Meteorologist was not only implying that evidence was ignored, but there was a conscious decision (systematically neglected) to ignore evidence. And not just any evidence, but unfavorable evidence.