Question:medium
Deborah Mayo is a philosopher of science who has attempted to capture the implications of the new experimentalism in a philosophically rigorous way. Mayo focuses on the detailed way in which claims are validated by experiment, and is concerned with identifying just what claims are borne out and how. A key idea underlying her treatment is that a claim can only be said to be supported by experiment if the various ways in which the claim could be at fault have been investigated and eliminated. A claim can only be said to be borne out by experiment, and a severe test of a claim, as usefully construed by Mayo, must be such that the claim would be unlikely to pass it if it were false.
Her idea can be explained by some simple examples. Suppose Snell's law of refraction of light is tested by some very rough experiments in which very large margins of error are attributed to the measurements of angles of incidence and refraction, and suppose that the results are shown to be compatible with the law within those margins of error. Has the law been supported by experiments that have severely tested it? From Mayo's perspective the answer is 'no' because, owing to the roughness of the measurements, the law of refraction would be quite likely to pass this test even if it were false and some other law differing not too much from Snell's law true. An exercise I carried out in my school-teaching days serves to drive this point home. My students had conducted some not very careful experiments to test Snell's law. I then presented them with some alternative laws of refraction that had been suggested in antiquity and mediaeval times, prior to the discovery of Snell's law, and invited the students to test them with the measurements they had used to test Snell's law; because of the wide margins of error they had attributed to their measurements, all of these alternative laws pass the test. This clearly brings out the point that the experiments in question did not constitute a severe test of Snell's law. The law would have passed the test even if it were false and one of the historical alternatives true.
The author's use of Snell's law of refraction to illustrate Mayo's perspective can best be said to be
Deborah Mayo is a philosopher of science who has attempted to capture the implications of the new experimentalism in a philosophically rigorous way. Mayo focuses on the detailed way in which claims are validated by experiment, and is concerned with identifying just what claims are borne out and how. A key idea underlying her treatment is that a claim can only be said to be supported by experiment if the various ways in which the claim could be at fault have been investigated and eliminated. A claim can only be said to be borne out by experiment, and a severe test of a claim, as usefully construed by Mayo, must be such that the claim would be unlikely to pass it if it were false.
Her idea can be explained by some simple examples. Suppose Snell's law of refraction of light is tested by some very rough experiments in which very large margins of error are attributed to the measurements of angles of incidence and refraction, and suppose that the results are shown to be compatible with the law within those margins of error. Has the law been supported by experiments that have severely tested it? From Mayo's perspective the answer is 'no' because, owing to the roughness of the measurements, the law of refraction would be quite likely to pass this test even if it were false and some other law differing not too much from Snell's law true. An exercise I carried out in my school-teaching days serves to drive this point home. My students had conducted some not very careful experiments to test Snell's law. I then presented them with some alternative laws of refraction that had been suggested in antiquity and mediaeval times, prior to the discovery of Snell's law, and invited the students to test them with the measurements they had used to test Snell's law; because of the wide margins of error they had attributed to their measurements, all of these alternative laws pass the test. This clearly brings out the point that the experiments in question did not constitute a severe test of Snell's law. The law would have passed the test even if it were false and one of the historical alternatives true.
The author's use of Snell's law of refraction to illustrate Mayo's perspective can best be said to be
Her idea can be explained by some simple examples. Suppose Snell's law of refraction of light is tested by some very rough experiments in which very large margins of error are attributed to the measurements of angles of incidence and refraction, and suppose that the results are shown to be compatible with the law within those margins of error. Has the law been supported by experiments that have severely tested it? From Mayo's perspective the answer is 'no' because, owing to the roughness of the measurements, the law of refraction would be quite likely to pass this test even if it were false and some other law differing not too much from Snell's law true. An exercise I carried out in my school-teaching days serves to drive this point home. My students had conducted some not very careful experiments to test Snell's law. I then presented them with some alternative laws of refraction that had been suggested in antiquity and mediaeval times, prior to the discovery of Snell's law, and invited the students to test them with the measurements they had used to test Snell's law; because of the wide margins of error they had attributed to their measurements, all of these alternative laws pass the test. This clearly brings out the point that the experiments in question did not constitute a severe test of Snell's law. The law would have passed the test even if it were false and one of the historical alternatives true.
The author's use of Snell's law of refraction to illustrate Mayo's perspective can best be said to be
Show Hint
Notice the phrase 'serves to drive this point home' right after the author introduces the example; that tells you its role.
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
- Contrived.
- Premeditated.
- Superfluous.
- Illustrative.
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The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
Right after explaining Mayo's abstract idea about severe tests, the author switches to a real classroom story: a rough Snell's law experiment where students' loose measurements let old, wrong laws of refraction pass the same test as the correct one. The question asks what this switch from abstract idea to concrete story is doing. Check each option against that purpose.
- Contrived: this would mean the example was artificial or forced. But the author says it is something he carried out in his school-teaching days, a real personal experience, not something invented to sound convincing.
- Premeditated: this would mean there was some planned, hidden agenda behind using this example. Nothing in the passage suggests any such scheming; the author is simply teaching a genuine point through a real exercise.
- Superfluous: this would mean the example was unnecessary padding. In fact, the example is what turns Mayo's abstract claim about severe tests into something a reader can actually picture and understand, so it is doing real work, not padding.
- Illustrative: this fits exactly. The author explicitly says the exercise 'serves to drive this point home', in other words, its whole job is to illustrate, or make vivid, the idea just explained. This is the plain, accurate description of the example's role.
Since the example is neither artificial, secretly planned, nor unnecessary, but instead a real teaching episode used purely to make an abstract point concrete, it is best described as illustrative.
Let's summarize:
- The author frames the Snell's law exercise as something he actually did, ruling out contrived.
- There is no sign of a hidden plan behind using it, ruling out premeditated.
- It directly clarifies Mayo's abstract idea rather than adding unneeded detail, ruling out superfluous, and it succeeds in making the point, ruling out inadequate.
So the author's use of Snell's law of refraction is best described as illustrative.
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Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
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