PrepTest 82, Section 2, Question 17
Scientist: A number of errors can plague a data-collection process. Since examining the collected data enables researchers to detect many of these errors, it is standard practice for researchers to correct collected data. However, in my field, there is a striking tendency for such corrections to favor Jones's theory; that is, the majority of corrections result in the corrected data's being closer than the uncorrected data to what Jones's theory predicts.
Scientist: A number of errors can plague a data-collection process. Since examining the collected data enables researchers to detect many of these errors, it is standard practice for researchers to correct collected data. However, in my field, there is a striking tendency for such corrections to favor Jones's theory; that is, the majority of corrections result in the corrected data's being closer than the uncorrected data to what Jones's theory predicts.
Scientist: A number of errors can plague a data-collection process. Since examining the collected data enables researchers to detect many of these errors, it is standard practice for researchers to correct collected data. However, in my field, there is a striking tendency for such corrections to favor Jones's theory; that is, the majority of corrections result in the corrected data's being closer than the uncorrected data to what Jones's theory predicts.
Scientist: A number of errors can plague a data-collection process. Since examining the collected data enables researchers to detect many of these errors, it is standard practice for researchers to correct collected data. However, in my field, there is a striking tendency for such corrections to favor Jones's theory; that is, the majority of corrections result in the corrected data's being closer than the uncorrected data to what Jones's theory predicts.
Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the tendency of corrections in the scientist's field to favor Jones's theory?
Researchers normally give data that is in line with a theory the same weight as data that conflicts with that theory when they are determining whether to accept that theory.
Researchers in the scientist's field give data that conflicts with Jones's theory greater scrutiny than they give data that is in line with Jones's theory.
Researchers in the scientist's field are more likely to pursue lines of research that they expect will favor theories they accept than to pursue other lines of research.
Even if researchers fail to detect errors in a data-collection process when they examine the data that they collected, that does not guarantee that no such errors exist.
Researchers in the scientist's field have formulated several other theories that attempt to explain the same range of phenomena that Jones's theory attempts to explain.
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