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Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research. The argument assumes that (A) unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur (B) anyone who does not serve on a medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research findings (C) the general public does not have access to the medical journals in which research findings are published (D) all medical research findings are subjected to prepublication peer review (E) peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial

Short Answer

Expert verified
The argument assumes (B) that the public lacks the expertise to evaluate medical research findings independently.

Step by step solution

01

Identify the Conclusion of the Argument

The argument concludes that waiting for a medical journal to publish research findings after peer review is necessary to protect the public from making decisions based on potentially substandard research.
02

Understand the Reasoning

The reasoning suggests that prepublication peer review is necessary because it helps prevent erroneous and harmful information from reaching the public. It implies that the public cannot evaluate medical claims correctly by themselves, thus the peer review acts as a safeguard.
03

Define the Assumptions

An assumption is an unstated premise that supports the argument’s conclusion. The conclusion relies on the assumption that the public is incapable of evaluating medical research without the intervention of peer review.
04

Analyze the Answer Choices

Evaluate each provided answer option to see which aligns with the assumption identified in the previous step. - (A) Suggests peer review only happens through medical journals, but doesn't directly support the conclusion's protection aspect. - (B) Suggests non-experts can't evaluate research, directly supporting the argument's assumption. - (C) Does not relate directly to the incapability of public evaluation. - (D) States a fact about all findings but does not support the protection aspect. - (E) Concerns the impartiality of peer reviews, unrelated to public incapability.
05

Choose the Best Answer

The assumption that directly supports the argument's conclusion about public protection by peer review is that the public does not have the expertise to evaluate medical findings on their own. The best answer fitting this assumption is (B).

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Key Concepts

These are the key concepts you need to understand to accurately answer the question.

Understanding the Peer Review Process
The peer review process is essential in the field of science and medicine. It ensures that the research findings are scrutinized before they are made public. In this process, a panel of experts evaluates the quality, validity, and relevance of a research paper.
These experts check the research for accuracy, sound methodology, and logical reasoning. This acts as a filter to catch any errors or biases that the original researchers may have overlooked.
By having multiple reviewers look at the same study, it increases the chances of identifying any flaws, ensuring that only research of the highest quality makes it to the public domain. Understanding this process helps us appreciate why a delay occurs between the completion of research and its publication. Although frustrating at times, this delay is crucial for maintaining the integrity of academic publications and protecting public health.
Evaluating Medical Research - The Essentials
Medical research evaluation is the process of determining whether research findings are credible and relevant. It involves critical assessments to ensure that conclusions drawn from medical studies are valid and reliable.
Key elements include:
  • Checking the study's methodology: Ensuring that it uses a sound design to answer the research question.
  • Statistical analysis: Assessing whether appropriate statistical methods were employed to derive the conclusions.
  • Conflict of interest: Evaluating whether the researchers have any financial or personal interests that could have influenced the study.
Evaluating these aspects helps safeguard against flawed or biased research findings. In this context, peer review acts as a checkpoint, ensuring that medical research meets high ethical and scientific standards. This is critical, as inaccurate medical information can have severe implications for patient care and policy decisions.
Critical Thinking Skills in Law Exams and Beyond
Critical thinking is a fundamental skill in law exams, such as the LSAT Logical Reasoning section. It's not just about understanding the law, but also about evaluating arguments and assessing assumptions.
This involves analyzing arguments for validity, identifying fallacies, and understanding unstated premises. To strengthen critical thinking skills:
  • Focus on understanding what is being argued versus what is being assumed.
  • Practice identifying the core argument's conclusion and the supporting and opposing reasons.
  • Consider alternative viewpoints and counterarguments.
These skills are valuable not only in law exams but also in reading and interpreting the quality of information. In today's world, where information is abundant but not always accurate, critical thinking allows individuals to discern claims critically, much like a peer review process in medical research.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

Journalist: Can you give me a summary of the novel you are working on? Novelist: Well, I assume that by "summary" you mean something brief and not a version of the novel itself. The reason I write novels is that what I want to communicate can be communicated only in the form of a novel. So I am afraid I cannot summarize my novel for you in a way that would tell you what I am trying to communicate with this novel. Which one of the following exhibits a pattern of reasoning that is most parallel to that used by the novelist? (A) Only if a drawing can be used as a guide by the builder can it be considered a blueprint. This drawing of the proposed building can be used as a guide by the builder, so it can be considered a blueprint. (B) Only a statement that does not divulge company secrets can be used as a press release. This statement does not divulge company secrets, but it is uninformative and therefore cannot be used as a press release. (C) Watching a travelog is not the same as traveling. But a travelog confers some of the benefits of travel without the hardships of travel. So many people just watch travelogs and do not undergo the hardships of travel. (D) Only a three-dimensional representation of a landscape can convey the experience of being in that landscape. A photograph taken with a traditional camera is not three-dimensional. Therefore a photograph taken with a traditional camera can never convey the experience of being in a landscape. (E) A banquet menu foretells the content of a meal, but some people collect menus in order to remind themselves of great meals they have eaten. Thus a banquet menu has a function not only before, but also after, a meal has been served.

Balance is particularly important when reporting the background of civil wars and conflicts. Facts must not be deliberately manipulated to show one party in a favorable light, and the views of each side should be fairly represented. This concept of balance, however, does not justify concealing or glossing over basic injustices in an effort to be even-handed. If all the media were to adopt such a perverse interpretation of balanced reporting, the public would be given a picture of a world where each party in every conflict had an equal measure of justice on its side, contrary to our experience of life and, indeed, our common sense. Which one of the following best expresses the main point of the argument? (A) Balanced reporting presents the public with a picture of the world in which all sides to a conflict have equal justification. (B) Balanced reporting requires impartially revealing injustices where they occur no less than fairly presenting the views of each party in a conflict. (C) Our experience of life shows that there are indeed cases in which conflicts arise because of an injustice, with one party clearly in the wrong. (D) Common sense tells us that balance is especially needed when reporting the background of civil wars and conflicts. (E) Balanced reporting is an ideal that cannot be realized, because judgments of balance are necessarily subjective.

In the summer of 1936 a polling service telephoned 10,000 United States voters and asked how they planned to vote in the coming presidential election. The survey sample included a variety of respondents - rural and urban, male and female, from every state. The poll predicted that Alfred Landon would soundly defeat Franklin Roosevelt. Nevertheless, Roosevelt won in a landslide. Which one of the following, if true, best explains why the poll's prediction was inaccurate? (A) The interviewers did not reveal their own political affiliation to the respondents. (B) Only people who would be qualified to vote by election time were interviewed, so the survey sample was not representative of the overall United States population. (C) The survey sample was representative only of people who could afford telephones at a time when phone ownership was less common than it is today. (D) No effort was made to determine the respondents' political affiliations. (E) Because the poll asked only for respondents' candidate preference, it collected no information concerning their reasons for favoring Landon or Roosevelt.

Which one of the following situations most closely parallels that of the Oneida delegates in refusing to accept a lump-sum payment of \(\$ 60,000\) ? (A) A university offers a student a four-year scholarship with the stipulation that the student not accept any outside employment; the student refuses the offer and attends a different school because the amount of the scholarship would not have covered living expenses. (B) A company seeking to reduce its payroll obligations offers an employee a large bonus if he will accept early retirement; the employee refuses because he does not want to compromise an outstanding worker's compensation suit. (C) Parents of a teenager offer to pay her at the end of the month for performing weekly chores rather than paying her on a weekly basis; the teenager refuses because she has a number of financial obligations that she must meet early in the month. (D) A car dealer offers a customer a \(\$ 500\) cash payment for buying a new car; the customer refuses because she does not want to pay taxes on the amount, and requests instead that her monthly payments be reduced by a proportionate amount. (E) A landlord offers a tenant several months rent-free in exchange for the tenant's agreeing not to demand that her apartment be painted every two years, as is required by the lease; the tenant refuses because she would have to spend her own time painting the apartment.

English and the Austronesian language Mbarbaram both use the word "dog" for canines. These two languages are unrelated, and since speakers of the two languages only came in contact with one another long after the word "dog" was first used in this way in either language, neither language could have borrowed the word from the other. Thus this case shows that sometimes when languages share words that are similar in sound and meaning the similarity is due neither to language relatedness nor to borrowing. The argument requires that which one of the following be assumed? (A) English and Mbarbaram share no words other than "dog." (B) Several languages besides English and Mbarbaram use "dog" as the word for canines. (C) Usually when two languages share a word, those languages are related to each other. (D) There is no third language from which both English and Mbarbaram borrowed the word "dog." (E) If two unrelated languages share a word, speakers of those two languages must have come in contact with one another at some time.

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