MCAT Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills Question 71: Answer and Explanation

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Test Information

Question: 71

6. With which of the following statements would the German anthropologists discussed in the passage be LEAST likely to agree?

  • A. Culture can obscure qualities common to all humans.
  • B. Nature can be described through a set of objective and unchanging categories.
  • C. Chemistry cannot be legitimately labeled as a science.
  • D. Newton erred in including theological considerations within natural science.

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

C This is an Inference/LEAST question (that is, it asks which statement is least supported by the passage).

A: No. This statement is supported by paragraph 5, where the author writes: "Braun argued that the study of plants allowed one to observe the essence of nature relatively directly because plants do not disguise themselves with culture, as humans do." Braun's ideas were part of the reason why the anthropologists saw botany as a model for their own approach.

B: No. In paragraph 1, the author states that "German anthropologists understood nature as a static [or unchanging] system of categories." In paragraph 3, the author claims: "From Kant anthropologists took an idea of nature as a static and objective system that could be conclusively known by scientists." Therefore, the anthropologists would agree with this statement.

C: Yes. While Kant believed chemistry was not a science, the anthropologists disagreed on this point. For Schelling and for the anthropologists (who followed Schelling's empirical approach), "a science of qualities, such as chemistry with its qualitatively different elements, could count as a science" (paragraph 4). Therefore the anthropologists would least agree with this statement.

D: No. In paragraph 3, the author states that "Unlike Newton, Kant excluded theological considerations from natural science" and that "this law-based, objective, totally secular, and perfectly knowable nature would have appealed to anthropologists." In paragraph 4, the passage states that "anthropologists separated religious and scientific questions, following Kant's rather than Schelling's understanding of the relation of natural and theological knowledge. Allowing theology and development to enter into discussions of nature would undermine the basic project of anthropology as an antihumanist science of natural peoples outside history." Therefore, the anthropologists would agree, not disagree, with this choice.

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