LSAT 149 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q26

RC Question 26 Explanation

DISCUSSION: The passage was a neutral description of Gilman’s ideas. The author didn’t say whether they agreed with them, and the author didn’t directly compare Gilman’s ideas to anyone else’s work.

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1. To be a defense, you’d need two things:

   1. Some opposing view. The standard Social Darwinists in the first paragraph aren’t fleshed out enough to be a real opposition. We don’t know what they think other than that they vaguely think competition is good and natural.
   2. Some words from the author showing support for Gilman. There were none.

   Example of words of support: “Gilman’s farsighted ideas about gender….” “Gilman’s heroic defence of Social Darwinism….”

2. CORRECT. The scientific theory is Darwinism. The controversy over the consequences is the Social Darwinism debate: did Darwin’s idea mean we needed competition and survival of the fittest in human society? The particular writer is Gilman: the passage is describing the role she played in the Social Darwinism debate. Gilman was for a cooperative version of Social Darwinism.
    
   “Description” fits very well. The author wasn’t really for or against Gilman, they merely described her and her role.
3. The only disagreement was in the first paragraph: competition vs. cooperation. The debate is left quite vague and we don’t know any other points of disagreement. Further, it’s implied the two groups do not share similar goals.
4. The author never suggested there was more than one interpretation of Gilman’s views. They presented her work as if the meaning was self evident and no one could disagree.
5. The second half of this is good: the passage is a detailed presentation of Gilman’s views: she is the “one writer”.
    
   The problem is the first part of this answer. The passage is not an introduction to Social Darwinism. Instead the passage briefly mentions Social Darwinism only in order to present Gilman’s ideas. Indeed the passage begins by discussing Perkins, not Social Darwinism.
    
   The passage utterly fails as an intro to Social Darwinism. You can read the whole thing and not have the least idea what Social Darwinism was about. For example, did you know that Social Darwinism generally advocated for eugenics and the idea that some races were better than other races. As such, Social Darwinism is utterly discredited today. None of that was discussed in the passage.