LSAT 105 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q2

LR Question 2 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Tennyson’s line of poetry “nature, red in tooth and …

QUESTION TYPE: Role in Argument

CONCLUSION: Tennyson’s line was not meant to reference Darwin’s theory of evolution.

REASONING:

1. The poem was published in 1850, but Darwin didn’t reveal his findings until 1859.
2. The context of the poem suggests that the line referred to the creationist theory.

ANALYSIS: The publication dates show that Tennyson published his poem before Darwin published his theory, and it also says Darwin revealed little about his theory before publishing.

This indicates that Tennyson probably didn’t know about the theory of evolution when he wrote the poem, therefore he can’t be referring to it.

___________

1. The stimulus never challenges Darwin’s authorship of the theory of evolution.
2. The dominance of the creationist theory isn’t directly related to the claim about publication dates.
3. CORRECT. The publication date comparison shows that Tennyson didn’t have access to Darwin’s theory when writing the poem, so his line can’t be referring to it.
4. There’s nothing to support this. And it’s pretty absurd to say that the theory of evolution was inspired by one line in a poem.
5. There’s no suggestion that Tennyson was unaware of biological theories at the time, just that he wasn’t referring to Darwin’s theory of evolution.