The question asks us which answer most accurately expresses the main point of the passage. In order to evaluate the answer chooses, we must make sure our understanding of the passage is accurate.
P1: Sommerer and Ott conceived a physical system that may challenge one of basic foundations of scientific research: that a result is only credible if it can be recreated
P2: Physical system based on riddled basins of attraction. Description of riddled basins of attraction.
P3: Difficulty in predicting certainty in riddled basins of attraction. Almost always impossible to predict the destination.
P4: Physical system is similar to riddled basins in respect to uncertainty.
P5: There must be other such systems because it is unlikely that the equation used in constructing the system was unstable. If other systems exist, scientists must question one of their most basic foundations of scientific research.
(A): Sommerer and Ott's model does not suggest that the results are unreliable.
(B): This is the correct answer because it best encapsulates the main point of the passage. The author discusses Sommerer and Ott's model to suggest that it is probably similar to other physical systems that scientists are working in. The last paragraph gives us the main clue for this answer. The author explains that it is very likely that there are other physical systems that make replication virtually impossible, which would challenge a basic foundation of scientific research. Rather than their results not being credible, they are probably working in similar physical systems!
(C): The model does not suggest that experimental results can NEVER be replicated, just in physical systems similar to Sommerer an Ott's model.
(D): The model does not suggest that most systems studied by scientists are examples of riddled basis of attraction. Rather, they use riddled basins of attraction to model their physical system showing the level of uncertainty involved in experimentation.
(E): This is exactly what Sommerer and Ott's model suggests to refute.
I absolutely loathe this passage.
