Critical Reasoning

Zelda: Dr. Ladlow, a research psychologist, has convincingly demonstrated that his theory about the determinants of rat behaviour generates consistently accurate predictions about how rats will perform in a maze. On the basis of this evidence Dr. Ladlow has claimed that his theory is irrefutably correct.
Anson: Then Dr. Ladlow is not responsible psychologist. Dr. Ladlow"Ÿs evidence does not conclusively prove that his theory is correct. Responsible psychologists always accept the possibility that new evidence will show that their theories are incorrect.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from Anson"Ÿs argument?
(A) Dr. Ladlow"Ÿs evidence that his theory generates consistently accurate predictions about how rates will perform in a maze is inaccurate
(B) Psychologists who can derive consistently accurate predictions about how rats will perform in a maze from their theories cannot responsibly conclude that those theories cannot be disproved
(C) No matter how responsible psychologists are, they can never develop correct theoretical explanations.
(D) Responsible psychologists do not make predictions about how rats will perform in a maze
(E) Psychologists who accept the possibility that new evidence will show that their theories are incorrect are responsible psychologists.


[spoiler]I shortlisted between B and E and finally chose E can someone tell me why E is wrong isn't E just reproduction of the last line of Anson's argument. I read many times that in inference questions never select an answer choice which repeats something already stated in the text may be you guys can help me out with this concept..BTW OA is B[/spoiler]

B is my choice and E is not the answer may be because its the same as Anson' argument.

Read this, you will get a better idea of what inference questions are?
https://www.f1gmat.com/blog/grockit/how- ... stion-type

Why E is not the right answer?

Read very closely...E states "Psychologists who accept the possibility that new evidence will show that their theories are incorrect are responsible psychologists."

Anson states that Dr. Ladlow is not a responsible psychologist since he does not accept the possibility that new evidence can show that his theory is incorrect

But this does not make the reverse statement true that "All psychologist who accept that new evidence can show that their theory is incorrect are responsible psychologist"

Ask yourslef the following question:

Will you ever go to a doctor who always makes some mistake in complex surgeries and accepts them later considering that he is a very responsilbe doctor???

Thanks for sharing this link...it was a great help

sivaelectric wrote:B is my choice and E is not the answer may be because its the same as Anson' argument.

Read this, you will get a better idea of what inference questions are?
https://www.f1gmat.com/blog/grockit/how- ... stion-type

Hey Suhalik, instead of typing thanks you can click the thanks button on the top right hand side of the post.

dv2020 wrote:Zelda: Dr. Ladlow, a research psychologist, has convincingly demonstrated that his theory about the determinants of rat behaviour generates consistently accurate predictions about how rats will perform in a maze. On the basis of this evidence Dr. Ladlow has claimed that his theory is irrefutably correct.
Anson: Then Dr. Ladlow is not responsible psychologist. Dr. Ladlow"Ÿs evidence does not conclusively prove that his theory is correct. Responsible psychologists always accept the possibility that new evidence will show that their theories are incorrect.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from Anson"Ÿs argument?
(A) Dr. Ladlow"Ÿs evidence that his theory generates consistently accurate predictions about how rates will perform in a maze is inaccurate
(B) Psychologists who can derive consistently accurate predictions about how rats will perform in a maze from their theories cannot responsibly conclude that those theories cannot be disproved
(C) No matter how responsible psychologists are, they can never develop correct theoretical explanations.
(D) Responsible psychologists do not make predictions about how rats will perform in a maze
(E) Psychologists who accept the possibility that new evidence will show that their theories are incorrect are responsible psychologists.


[spoiler]I shortlisted between B and E and finally chose E can someone tell me why E is wrong isn't E just reproduction of the last line of Anson's argument. I read many times that in inference questions never select an answer choice which repeats something already stated in the text may be you guys can help me out with this concept..BTW OA is B[/spoiler]

going through https://www.f1gmat.com/blog/grockit/how- ... stion-type
& David's explanation https://www.beatthegmat.com/inference-qu ... tml#370107

I can now safely conclude that E can be eliminated
the last sentence of Anson's argument is something like this

"Good doctors count all the instruments after completion of a surgery"

but that does not necessarily mean that

"Doctors who count all the instruments after completion of a surgery are good doctors"

Doctors could be good doctors for n numbers of reasons

they might be qualified from the best schools

they might have good experience in their fileds of specialisation

the list can be endless..

So using POE we are only left with B

Now can someone please explain why B is correct??

First of all you are correct about not concluding the opposite. This explanation from ani1130 is worth quoting!

Read very closely...E states "Psychologists who accept the possibility that new evidence will show that their theories are incorrect are responsible psychologists."

Anson states that Dr. Ladlow is not a responsible psychologist since he does not accept the possibility that new evidence can show that his theory is incorrect

But this does not make the reverse statement true that "All psychologist who accept that new evidence can show that their theory is incorrect are responsible psychologist"

Now what about choice B? It is very convoluted...lets work through it

"(B) Psychologists who can derive consistently accurate predictions about how rats will perform in a maze from their theories cannot responsibly conclude that those theories cannot be disproved"

Now this says a lot of stuff but here are the important words "psychologists...cannot responsibly conclude that those theories cannot be disproved."

That's the essence of the whole stimulus right? That no psychologist can conclude their theory will never be disproved by new evidence? So what ever is represented by the dots in between the words "psychologists" and "cannot" does not really matter. Because whatever type of psychologist is mentioned this will still be true.

If it says ""psychologists who wear blue shirts cannot responsibly conclude that those theories cannot be disproved." this would work right? Because it is true of all psychologists.

Now this argument is not talking about psychologists wearing blue shirts, but is talking about psychologists who make consistently accurate predictions about rats. Yet even these psychologists must follow the rule and never assume that they will not be disproved by new evidence at a later time!