Question 58

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.

How do we choose one discovery over any other? The physician Lewis Thomas made a choice. He bluntly asserts: “The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th-century science has been the discovery of human ignorance.”

The science writer Timothy Ferris agrees: “Our ignorance, of course, has always been with us, and always will be. What is new is our awareness of it, our awakening to its fathomless dimensions, and it is this, more than anything else, that marks the coming of age of our species.”

It is an odd, unsettling thought that the culmination of our greatest century of discovery should be the confirmation of our ignorance. How did such a thing come about?

Which of the following statements can be BEST concluded from the above passage?

Solution

Option E is the correct answer.

The passage emphasises that recognising our ignorance, or what we don’t know, has been a significant discovery. This awareness of ignorance is what drives us to learn more, which aligns with option E. The other options, while they might seem related, do not capture the main idea of the passage as accurately as option e does.


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