Q24

[harleywferguson]

Wow, this question was extremely hard to me. None of the answers clicked during timed conditions and I just shot in the dark. However, I think I see why it is right now? Answer B is correct because "the initial failure of Newton's laws to correctly predict Uranus's orbit" supports the claim that negative evidence is rarely conclusive by illustrating that the auxillary assumptions were what needed to be changed to make the theory correct and led the scientists to then think the theory was conclusive...HOWEVER....it was later discovered through the mercury example that Newton's theory was not airtight and thus not conclusive. It still seems very vague to me but am I on the right track?

[kyuya]

The last sentence in A claims that negative evidence is rarely conclusive.

(B) supports this because if Newtons initial failure (negative evidence) was to be conclusive, it would not be true that it eventually was correct and found neptune. However, it was wrong initially (negative evidence provided) but nonetheless proved itself as a worthy theory by discovering Neptune and showing the initial failure was NOT conclusive.

[emossor]

Got it wrong (chose E).

Above poster is right. Positive evidence DID play a role in supporting Newton's theory because it predicted Neptune (the assumptions were wrong not the law itself). That doesn't mean it is conclusive because it was "disproved" when Einstein came around.

Is E wrong because there is no real way to know the author of B's thoughts on "attempting to refute" bold theories? I chose E originally because passage B seemed more focused on trying to prove theories right rather than refute them; seen in the scientists trying to predict (prove?) the orbit of Uranus and Mercury rather than disprove them.

[ohthatpatrick]

Let's make sure we're first clear on the meaning of the Psg A author's last sentence:
"Negative evidence is rarely conclusive".

Negative evidence is basically like triggering a contrapositive:

If X is true, then Y would be true.

Were we to find out Y is false, we conclusively know that X is false.

In Psg A, our author is saying that scientific theories are rarely that straightforward. It's more like

If X is true (and our assumptions about W and Z are also true), then Y would be true.


Here, finding out Y is false doesn't immediately tell us which part was wrong. Was X wrong or was one of our assumptions wrong?

Q24 is asking for a situation in which Y was false, but X was correct!

We need a situation in which a theory makes a prediction, the prediction turns out to be false, but that doesn't conclusively tell us that the theory is wrong (because it looks like we were just wrong about one of our assumptions).

=========

In Psg B, there are two theories / two confusing observations.

1. If Newton's laws are right (and our assumptions are true), Uranus should orbit like this.
2. If Newton's laws are right (and our assumptions are true), Mercury should orbit like this.

In both cases we observed that Uranus and Mercury did NOT orbit the way we predicted they would.

Q24 wants an example in which the prediction was wrong, but the theory was right.

For #1, Newton's theory was still seen as correct, because one of the ASSUMPTIONS was actually false (the assumption that there were no other planets near Uranus).

For #2, Newton's theory turned out to be wrong.

So Q24 wants us to talk about the Newton / Uranus situation.

(A) discovering Uranus is not what #1 is about. Discovering that its orbit didn't live up to predictions is what #1 is about.

(B) Looks good!

(C), (D), and (E) are about Mercury. The Mercury situation was an example in which negative evidence (Mercury's orbit doesn't live up to predictions) actually WAS a conclusive way of refuting a theory.