Question

Statements: All young scientists are open-minded. No open-minded men are superstitious. Conclusions: I. No scientist is superstitious. II. No young people are superstitious.

• A. Only conclusion I follows
• B. Only conclusion II follows
• C. Neither I nor II follows
• D. Either I or II follows

Hint:

Be very careful with the scope of the terms in syllogisms. "Scientists" is a broader category than "young scientists". "Young people" is a broader category than "young scientists". A conclusion cannot be broader than what the premises support.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Let's break down the statements. 

Statement 1: "All young scientists are open-minded." (If a person is a Young Scientist (YS), they are Open-Minded (OM)). 

Statement 2: "No open-minded men are superstitious." (The set of Open-Minded Men (OMM) and the set of Superstitious people (S) are disjoint). 

Deduction from Statements: The first statement talks about "young scientists" (which includes men and women). The second statement talks about "open-minded men". From S1, we know young scientists are open-minded. So, young male scientists are open-minded men. From S2, we know open-minded men are not superstitious. Therefore, the only definite conclusion we can draw is: No young male scientists are superstitious. 

Evaluating the Conclusions: \[\begin{array}{rl} \bullet & \text{Conclusion I: No scientist is superstitious. The statements only talk about "young scientists". We have no information about older scientists. An older scientist could be superstitious. So, I does not follow.} \\ \bullet & \text{Conclusion II: No young people are superstitious. The statements only talk about "young scientists". We have no information about young people who are not scientists (e.g., young artists, young business people). They could be superstitious. So, II does not follow.} \\ \end{array}\] Since neither conclusion is a logical certainty, the correct answer is that neither I nor II follows.