RC Question 25 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: The passage most strongly suggests that the…
DISCUSSION: There’s no prompt here. Preparation for this type of question is based entirely on how well you read the passage and how well you form an opinion of the author’s views. (including the limits of our knowledge. For some things we can’t know what their opinion would be.)
___________
- This answer describes Steele’s theory. The author is skeptical of Steele’s theory.
You might have picked this because lines 31-33 say reverse transcription is possible. But reverse transcription doesn’t mean passing on information to a new generation. It’s just passing information back to DNA, in the same organism. - CORRECT. Lines 30-33 say this. “Steele hypothesizes that altered RNA reverts back to DNA.” That strongly suggests Steels hasn’t actually observed the process. The fact that the author then says “indeed, such reverse transcription….has been observed frequently in other contexts” would be an unnecessary statement if Steele had in fact observed reverse transcription.
- This refers to lines 49-51. That’s Steele’s “claim” of evidence for his theory (in lines 41-43 Steele claimed it was a virus that made these signatures).
Since the author is skeptical of Steele’s theory, they wouldn’t agree with this answer. - Why would the author think this? It’s a very broad claim. Right now the author probably thinks Lamarckism exists nowhere. But if Lamarckism was proven to exist in the immune system, the author might reasonably expect to find it elsewhere. So they wouldn’t agree that if it exists it’s only in the immune system.
- Lines 46-47 suggest the author disagrees with this answer. They say we can never observe evolutionary mechanisms directly. However, the author appears to accept the theory of evolution.
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I crossed out answer choice B immediately because it is based on the notion that neither Steele nor his colleagues have observed the process of reverse transcription. The passage says it’s been observed frequently–I read “in other contexts” as “this process is natural and has been frequently observed, but it’s just not certain if it carries the DNA to where Steele says it does.” It seemed as though it was a very natural phenomenon that is observed with some regularity, just like eating–but if some radical scientist were to theorize “when food is consumed, it is processed only in the stomach and then immediately exits the body”, I thought this part in the passage about “reverse transcription” was saying the equivalent in the context of my analogy: “yes the phenomenon of eating is observed frequently,” but then it went on to mean “but this doesn’t prove the radical scientist’s theory related to this phenomenon.” As in, yes reverse transcription is frequently observe, but it doesn’t prove Steele’s theory. But it seems in reality that statement alone is grounds to say the author is implying neither Steele nor his colleagues have seen this “frequently observed” process themselves? Maybe I went too far during that line of thinking, but I was trying to provide context for how that line read to me.
Reverse transcription “in other contexts” has been commonly seen. The author implies we haven’t seen it in immune cells though. That’s the key difference.
See the start of the 3rd and 4th paragraphs.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.