Q20 - Reviewer: Many historians claim

[rishisb]

Hello!

For my own knoweldge, could you please explain why C, although attractive, is not the correct answer to this question?

Thank you very much

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Great question Rishi!

Unfortunately your question requires a fairly close look at the argument. It's not the case that I can point to a word in the answer choice that would disqualify it.

The issue is that there is a gap in the reasoning, and while answer choice (C) would call the evidence into question, it doesn't describe why the conclusion doesn't follow from the evidence.

Evidence
There are evidences of false historical explanations embodying the ideological and other prejudices of their authors.

Conclusion
We cannot accept the claims of authors who purport to be objective.

The gap in the reasoning is whether or not those who purport to be objective are the same authors whose works contain ideological and other prejudices. This gap is best expressed in answer choice (D).

(A) is not assumed. Nowhere does the author claim that one model should apply to another.
(B) is not true. The evidence does support the conclusion, but simply fails to establish the conclusion.
(C) is tempting, but it talks about intent. The premise states that bias has actually been found, so the attempts, if aligned with these examples, failed.
(E) is not true. The argument never claims nor assumes that all historical explanations embodying ideologies are false.

Does that help clear this one up? Let me know if answer choice (C) is still tempting!

[allison.cho77]

Do we take it for granted when the stimulus says "false historical explanations embodying the ideological and other prejudices"? or can we says it's a flaw to assume that false historical exp necessarily embody the ideological and other prejudices? Thanks!:)

[gabcap1]

Thanks for the explanation, Matt.

The reason I found (C) to be really tempting was that perhaps the historians are aware of the problems in their work and discuss their prejudices in conjunction with their historical explanations. What helped me retrospectively eliminate it is the mismatch between numbers/groups of historians being referred to:

In the stimulus:
"Many historians claim..."
The authors of the false historical explanations

As you clarify, the mismatch is perfectly addressed in (D). (C) only adds to the mess: "Many historians employ methodologies" -- who are these historians? The authors? The ones claiming to be objective? If we can't align them to a group being discussed then this AC doesn't help very much.