Points of Disagreement

Passage A
Antitrust jurisprudence must be guided strictly by quantifiable economic metrics, specifically the consumer welfare standard. When evaluating corporate mergers, courts should intervene only if the consolidation threatens to increase consumer prices, reduce output, or stifle innovation. To incorporate broader political or social goals into antitrust enforcement would introduce subjective unpredictability, empowering judges to act as legislators rather than impartial arbiters. Therefore, the sole legitimate focus of antitrust regulation is maximizing economic efficiency. Concerns regarding the structural integrity of democratic institutions in the face of corporate concentration, while valid in the realm of broader public policy, must be addressed through other legislative avenues—such as campaign finance reform or labor laws—rather than through market regulation.

Passage B
The prevailing orthodoxy asserting that antitrust law exists solely to promote economic efficiency willfully ignores the legislative history of foundational statutes. The framers of early antitrust legislation were primarily concerned with the political threats posed by extreme corporate concentration—specifically, the well-documented capacity of massive monopolies to exert undue influence and subvert democratic institutions. While short-term price effects are certainly relevant to regulatory review, courts must also evaluate the structural power dynamics created by mega-mergers. Relying entirely on the consumer welfare standard strips antitrust law of its most vital historical function: serving as a bulwark for a decentralized political economy where no single entity holds outsized democratic sway.

Statement: A genuine point of disagreement between the authors of Passage A and Passage B is whether extreme corporate concentration has the potential to subvert democratic institutions.

Passage A
The traditional historiography of the Scientific Revolution emphasizes the autonomous evolution of ideas. From this perspective, the radical shifts in astronomical and physical paradigms during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were driven fundamentally by internal intellectual tensions and the advent of new observational instruments. The transition from a geocentric to a heliocentric cosmos, for example, arose from mathematical inconsistencies in the Ptolemaic system and the subsequent observational data provided by the telescope, rather than from any immediate societal demand. While broader economic changes were occurring concurrently, these were merely incidental to the solitary, cognitive breakthroughs of figures like Copernicus and Galileo. The intellectual trajectory of science possesses its own internal logic, largely insulated from the socioeconomic pressures of the era.

Passage B
To view the Scientific Revolution as a purely intellectual phenomenon is to ignore the material realities of early modern Europe. The rapid development of physics, astronomy, and mathematics during this period was intimately tied to the practical requirements of emerging capitalist enterprises and expanding state power. Navigation required precise celestial tables, mining demanded an understanding of pneumatics, and warfare relied on the ballistics of cannon fire. The so-called "geniuses" of the era were not operating in a cognitive vacuum; they were responding to explicitly formulated technical problems posed by their socio-economic environment. Thus, the conceptual breakthroughs of the seventeenth century were not autonomous intellectual exercises, but rather the inevitable ideological byproducts of a shifting economic base that demanded mastery over nature.

Which one of the following is a point at issue between the author of Passage A and the author of Passage B?

Passage A
Recent advancements in spectroscopic imaging have revolutionized art restoration, allowing conservators to definitively identify and recreate the exact chromatic values originally applied by Renaissance masters. For decades, traditionalists have protested aggressive cleaning techniques, arguing for the preservation of the so-called "patina of time." However, this romanticization of decay fundamentally misunderstands the nature of visual art. The accumulated grime, smoke, and oxidized varnish of centuries are not historical enhancements; they are arbitrary corruptions that actively obscure the creator's true aesthetic intent. When a restorer meticulously strips away these accretions to reveal the vibrant, jarring colors beneath, they are not erasing history—they are rescuing the artwork's authentic identity from the ravages of time. The fundamental obligation of conservation must be to the artist's pristine original vision, exactly as it existed at the moment the brush left the canvas.

Passage B
The contemporary trend of radical art restoration operates on a deeply flawed paradigm of "original intent." Driven by a hyper-scientific approach, modern conservators often treat historical paintings as mere chemical puzzles to be reverted to an arbitrary baseline state. This approach assumes that an artwork's most authentic condition is the precise moment of its physical completion. However, this ignores the established historical reality that many master painters deliberately selected specific oils and glazes fully anticipating how they would mature, darken, or shift in tone over subsequent decades. The physical aging of the materials was actively factored into the aesthetic trajectory of the piece. By employing harsh chemical solvents to strip away the varnish, restorers do not reveal an original masterpiece; rather, they produce a sterile, harshly chromatic artifact that neither the artist nor their contemporary audience would recognize. The passage of time is integral, not inimical, to the work's aesthetic authenticity.

The authors of the two passages would be most likely to disagree over the truth of which one of the following statements?

Passage A
Observational astronomy has firmly established that the visible mass in galaxies cannot account for their rotational speeds. The most scientifically robust explanation posits a halo of dark matter—specifically, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). While these particles have thus far eluded direct detection, the dark matter paradigm coheres elegantly with standard cosmological models, explaining not just galactic rotation but also gravitational lensing and the cosmic microwave background. Positing entirely new physics, as some theorists suggest, upends foundational physical laws merely to avoid hypothesizing an undetectable particle—a theoretical cure far worse than the observational disease.

Passage B
For decades, the astrophysical community has operated under the assumption that "dark matter" must exist to rescue Newtonian dynamics at the galactic scale. Yet millions of dollars and countless experiments have failed to produce a single dark matter particle. It is time to seriously consider an alternative: the laws of gravity themselves may require modification at extremely low accelerations. Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) predicts the exact rotational behavior of galaxies without the need for invisible, undetectable matter. While MOND faces challenges in explaining cosmic microwave background fluctuations, clinging to an unfalsifiable particle hypothesis reflects a stagnation of scientific philosophy. Adopting modified gravity offers a more empirically grounded path forward than continuing a fruitless hunt for phantoms.

Based on the passages, match each proposition below to the correct description of the authors' stances toward it.

Passage A
The bedrock of clinical ethics is patient autonomy and the corollary principle of medical confidentiality. When genetic testing reveals a mutation predisposing a patient to a severe, onset-delayed disease, physicians often face pressure to warn the patient’s at-risk relatives. However, breaching confidentiality without explicit consent fundamentally undermines the fiduciary nature of the doctor-patient relationship. Without the assurance of absolute privacy, individuals might forgo genetic testing altogether, paradoxically increasing overall harm. While the desire to prevent future suffering is commendable, a physician’s primary ethical obligation remains firmly tethered to the individual who sought their care. Only when an immediate, highly probable, and strictly preventable danger is present—a threshold genetic predispositions rarely meet—can the veil of confidentiality be ethically pierced.

Passage B
Traditional bioethics, rooted in an atomistic view of individual rights, struggles to accommodate the unique nature of genomic data. Genetic information is inherently shared; to diagnose one individual is often to probabilistically diagnose their biological relatives. Therefore, treating genetic test results strictly as private medical records ignores the biological reality of the familial unit. Physicians possess a duty of non-maleficence that extends beyond the immediate patient. When a patient refuses to disclose a preventable genetic risk to family members, the physician must weigh the breach of confidentiality against the potential for grave, avoidable harm. While consent should always be sought first, the ethical mandate to warn relatives—particularly when prophylactic interventions exist—should supersede absolute adherence to patient confidentiality.

Based on the two passages, match each proposition below to the most accurate description of how the authors of Passage A and Passage B would respond to it.

Passage A
The long-standing debate over corporate criminal liability often falters on the misconception that a corporation is nothing more than the sum of its human parts. This reductionist view, however, fails to account for the reality of corporate culture and decision-making structures. A modern corporation possesses an internal identity and a decision-making apparatus that operates independently of any single individual's will. Consequently, a corporation can cultivate a reckless or fraudulent culture that transcends the actions of specific employees. Because the organization itself can manifest intent through its policies and institutional practices, it is entirely appropriate to subject the corporation, as a distinct moral and legal entity, to criminal condemnation and retribution. To do otherwise is to ignore the unique ontological status that organizations hold in contemporary society.

Passage B
Assigning criminal liability to corporations is an exercise in legal fiction that obscures the true nature of corporate wrongdoing. A corporate entity is essentially a nexus of contracts—a structural arrangement through which individuals collaborate to generate economic value. As an abstract legal construct, a corporation lacks a mind and, therefore, cannot possess *mens rea* (criminal intent) or moral culpability. When corporate misconduct occurs, it is invariably the result of decisions made by specific human agents. While civil penalties levied against the corporate entity can serve the pragmatic goal of deterring future misconduct by incentivizing shareholders to monitor management, prosecuting the corporation itself as a moral agent is fundamentally flawed. True justice requires identifying and punishing the culpable individuals rather than imposing retributive sanctions on an inanimate legal shell.

Based on the passages, match each of the following propositions to the statement that most accurately describes the authors' stances regarding that proposition.

Passage A
Critics of courtroom rhetoric often demand a sterile environment, stripped of all emotional resonance, where only syllogisms are presented to the jury. This view fundamentally misunderstands the nature of justice. Humans are not calculating machines. An advocate's deliberate appeal to emotion is not necessarily a distraction from the truth; rather, it is often the very mechanism required to help a jury fully grasp the severity of a wrong or the profound impact of a crime. When grounded firmly in the evidentiary record, emotional persuasion is a vital, legitimate component of comprehensive legal reasoning.

Passage B
The integrity of the judicial process relies entirely on the objective evaluation of facts. While the events leading to a trial are frequently laden with tragedy, the attorney's presentation of those events must remain rigorously analytical. Attempting to elicit an emotional response from a jury is inherently manipulative, as it invites jurors to substitute sympathy or outrage for logical deliberation. To ensure fair outcomes, courts must demand that advocates avoid emotional rhetoric and confine their arguments strictly to the rational application of law to the established facts.

Based on the passages, which of the following statements represents a point of disagreement between the two authors?

Passage A
Advocates of libertarian paternalism suggest that governments should implement "nudges"—policies that predictably alter citizen behavior without forbidding any options or significantly changing economic incentives. Because human beings suffer from bounded rationality and cognitive biases, they routinely make decisions that undermine their own long-term welfare, such as failing to save adequately for retirement. Nudges mitigate these failures by structuring choices so that the default option automatically aligns with the individual's best interests. Importantly, because nudges do not coerce or mandate, they preserve the individual's freedom of choice. Therefore, utilizing our understanding of human cognitive biases to architect choices is not merely morally permissible; it is a responsible exercise of state power that enhances citizen well-being without infringing on individual liberty.

Passage B
The current enthusiasm for choice architecture in public policy rests on a flawed conception of freedom. Proponents argue that as long as an individual can technically opt out of a default arrangement, their autonomy remains intact. However, this conflates formal liberty with genuine moral autonomy. By deliberately exploiting the very cognitive biases that lead to irrationality—such as inertia, framing effects, or anchoring—nudges intentionally bypass the citizen's rational deliberative capacities. True respect for autonomy requires governments to engage with citizens as rational agents through transparent argumentation and persuasion, not to manipulate them behind their backs. When the state shapes behavior by circumventing conscious deliberation, it infantilizes the populace and fundamentally disrespects their capacity for self-governance.

Based on the arguments presented, the authors of Passage A and Passage B would be most likely to disagree over the truth of which one of the following statements?

Passage A
The Late Bronze Age Mediterranean was characterized by a highly integrated, specialized international economy. While many historians point to external shocks, such as droughts or invasions, as the definitive catalysts for the era's collapse, the root cause was internal. The hyper-specialization of these states made them structurally brittle. Their rigid administrative systems and heavy reliance on imported goods meant that a disruption in any single node—such as a localized famine or a regional conflict—inevitably cascaded across the network, leading to systemic failure. Thus, external shocks merely exposed a structural inevitability; the economic architecture of the system dictated that it was destined to fracture under its own weight.

Passage B
The tendency to view the Late Bronze Age collapse as an inevitable consequence of systemic economic fragility ignores the resilience these societies had demonstrated for centuries. The interconnected trade networks, rather than being inherently brittle, actually provided a robust buffer against localized failures by allowing resources to be dynamically redirected to struggling regions. What precipitated the catastrophic collapse was not a structural flaw waiting to be exposed by a minor disruption, but rather an unprecedented, century-long megadrought that decimated agricultural yields across the entire Mediterranean basin. No economic system, regardless of its internal structure, could have withstood such a profound and widespread environmental shock.

Based on the passages, the authors would be most likely to disagree over which of the following?

Passage A
The pursuit of "absolute authenticity" in the performance of Baroque music is a fundamentally flawed enterprise. Proponents of the historically informed performance (HIP) movement invest immense effort into procuring period instruments and deciphering treatises on eighteenth-century bowing techniques. Yet, this antiquarian approach ignores a crucial variable: the modern listener. We cannot unhear the lush orchestration of the Romantic era or the dissonance of the twentieth century; our auditory baseline has fundamentally shifted. Furthermore, composers like Bach were eminently practical, frequently adapting their own works for whatever instruments were at hand. Instead of a rigid adherence to historical reconstruction, performers should strive to translate the emotional vitality and rhetorical intent of the music for contemporary audiences, even if that means employing the dynamic range and resonance of a modern concert grand piano.

Passage B
The value of the historically informed performance (HIP) movement lies not in a quixotic quest for time travel, but in the systematic removal of anachronistic interpretive layers. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a thick veneer of Romanticism—characterized by heavy vibrato, sluggish tempos, and seamless legato—was applied to Baroque repertoire, profoundly obscuring its original architecture. By returning to period instruments and historical treatises, performers establish an objective framework that limits arbitrary subjective choices. It is true, of course, that today's audiences approach the music with different cultural conditioning. However, the physical realities of period instruments—their unequal temperament, their distinct registral colors, their quicker decay—dictate specific tempos and articulations that fundamentally alter the musical structure. To substitute modern instruments is to erase the very friction and transparency that give the music its defining character.

Which of the following most accurately states a point of disagreement between the authors of the two passages?

Read the following two passages regarding the biological classification of viruses.

Passage A
The debate over the biological status of viruses often hinges on an antiquated, binary definition of life. While it is true that viruses are obligate intracellular parasites—meaning they cannot replicate or perform metabolic functions outside a host cell—this dependence does not strip them of their biological nature. Viruses possess genetic material (DNA or RNA), they adapt to their environments, and they undergo Darwinian evolution. If we view life not as a rigid checklist of features, but as a continuum of biological complexity, viruses clearly fall on the spectrum of living organisms. Their capacity to evolve and direct the machinery of a host cell demonstrates that they are much more than inert chemical compounds.

Passage B
To classify viruses as living organisms is to blur the crucial boundary between complex chemistry and true biology. A fundamental hallmark of life is independent metabolism—the ability to capture and utilize energy to sustain cellular processes. Viruses lack not only cellular structure but also the metabolic machinery necessary for self-sustenance and independent replication. They are, essentially, highly structured biochemical packages that remain entirely inert until they happen to interact with a suitable host cell. Therefore, while their genetic material allows them to be incorporated into a host's evolutionary trajectory, viruses themselves are not alive. They are more accurately categorized alongside complex organic molecules rather than biological organisms.

Based on the passages, match each statement to the authors' respective stances.

Passage A
The founders of the republic universally understood the "law of nations" to be an integral component of the general common law. Modern critics who insist that customary international law (CIL) requires statutory implementation to be domestically enforceable ignore this historical bedrock. While it is true that CIL lacks the formal electoral pedigree of a domestic statute, it is legitimately derived from the consistent practices of states acting out of a sense of legal obligation. Unless the national legislature has explicitly repudiated a specific international norm, domestic courts have a constitutional duty to recognize and apply established CIL as federal law. This judicial application does not usurp legislative prerogative; rather, it fulfills the foundational assumption that the state operates within a binding global legal framework.

Passage B
Advocates for the automatic incorporation of customary international law (CIL) into federal common law overlook the structural imperatives of democratic governance. It is true that early jurists respected the "law of nations" as part of the common law, but they operated in a jurisprudential era predating the modern positive state, wherein law was viewed as an abstract truth to be discovered rather than a rule to be actively made. Today, democratic legitimacy demands that any rule coercively binding citizens be enacted by politically accountable representatives. CIL is forged through opaque diplomatic consensus and state practice—mechanisms entirely detached from domestic legislative processes. Consequently, while CIL unquestionably binds the state politically in the international arena, it cannot be legitimately enforced by domestic judges absent affirmative statutory codification.

Based on the two passages, the authors would be most likely to disagree over the truth of which one of the following statements?

Read the following two passages regarding architectural preservation.

Passage A
Historical monuments are more than just their original architectural designs; they are tangible records of the passage of time. When we attempt to fully "restore" a ruin by rebuilding fallen walls and replacing weathered stone with pristine materials, we engage in an act of historical forgery. Such restorations erase the genuine marks of age and substitute a modern replica masquerading as antiquity. The only ethical approach to a historic ruin is stabilization—halting further deterioration through careful, unobtrusive maintenance while accepting the structure's fractured state as an essential part of its authentic identity.

Passage B
To leave a magnificent architectural achievement in ruins out of a misplaced reverence for decay is to abandon the original creators' vision. A cathedral or fortress was designed as a unified, functional entity, not as a crumbling romantic landscape. True architectural conservation goes beyond mere stabilization; it requires reestablishing the building's structural and aesthetic integrity. By judiciously reconstructing missing elements, even if it requires extrapolating from the surviving fabric, we allow contemporary observers to experience the monument not as a melancholic relic, but in the triumphant completeness its designers intended.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a central point of disagreement between the authors of the two passages?

Passage A
Philosophers of science have long debated the epistemic status of thought experiments. Empiricists typically maintain that a thought experiment is merely an elaborate way of unpacking the implications of prior empirical observations. According to this view, when Galileo imagined dropping two connected stones to refute Aristotelian physics, he was not accessing new facts about the universe through pure reason. Rather, he was exposing a logical contradiction within the existing Aristotelian framework using knowledge already acquired through experience. Thought experiments, therefore, are valuable pedagogical and heuristic devices. They help us reorganize our conceptual commitments and recognize the consequences of our existing data, but they cannot transcend the empirical data upon which they are built. They yield no novel empirical knowledge about the physical world.

Passage B
The notion that thought experiments are nothing more than deductive arguments in disguise fails to account for their actual role in scientific revolutions. While it is true that thought experiments do not involve new sensory input, they frequently produce genuinely new empirical knowledge about the natural world. Consider Einstein's famous elevator thought experiment, which established the equivalence principle. This was not merely a reorganization of existing Newtonian concepts; it fundamentally reconfigured our understanding of gravity and acceleration, predicting phenomena that were previously unconsidered. By pushing our conceptual frameworks to their logical extremes in imagined scenarios, thought experiments allow us to perceive underlying physical realities that direct observation obscures. They act as a species of a priori empirical reasoning, granting us access to the laws of nature independent of new physical experiments.

Based on the passages, which one of the following most accurately describes a point of disagreement between the author of Passage A and the author of Passage B?

Read the following two passages regarding the historical impact of the printing press.

Passage A
The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century constituted a sudden, cataclysmic rupture with the medieval past. By standardizing texts and enabling mass reproduction, print technology immediately began dismantling the church's monopoly on knowledge and served as the indispensable catalyst for the Scientific Revolution. Without the press, the rapid spread of revolutionary scientific theories would have been impossible, as prior scribal networks were too slow and inherently prone to corruption. Thus, the printing press did not merely accelerate existing historical trends; it fundamentally created an entirely new intellectual paradigm.

Passage B
Historians often succumb to technological determinism by characterizing the printing press as an agent of sudden, radical change. In reality, the transition from manuscript to print was remarkably gradual. Scribal culture and manuscript distribution networks thrived long after Gutenberg, providing the very commercial infrastructure that early printers relied upon to survive. Furthermore, the earliest printed works were not revolutionary scientific treatises, but rather traditional religious texts and administrative documents intended to reinforce existing institutions. The intellectual transformations of the era were rooted in broader socioeconomic shifts, to which the printing press was merely an eventual, albeit significant, contributor.

Match each specific historical issue in contention (Left Items) with the statement that best describes the precise nature of the authors' disagreement on that issue (Right Items).

Below are two passages addressing the economic and scientific impacts of pharmaceutical patents.

Passage A
The justification for the pharmaceutical patent framework is clear and compelling: it supplies the indispensable incentive for the immense investments required to bring novel therapeutics to market. Developing a new drug is an arduous process often spanning a decade and costing billions, with the vast majority of candidates failing in clinical trials. Without the temporary exclusivity granted by a patent, generic competitors could immediately replicate successful compounds at a fraction of the cost, completely undermining the original innovator's ability to recoup their initial investment. Consequently, diluting patent protections would inevitably precipitate a drastic decline in the development of life-saving medical treatments.

Passage B
While proponents of the pharmaceutical patent system argue it is necessary to spur research, the reality is that the current framework frequently retards genuine medical advancement. The lure of monopoly pricing encourages companies to focus disproportionately on "evergreening"—making minor, clinically insignificant modifications to existing blockbuster drugs merely to extend their patent life, rather than pursuing entirely novel therapeutics. Furthermore, by locking up foundational discoveries, patents can block cumulative innovation, preventing other researchers from building upon early-stage findings. Transitioning toward alternative models, such as government-funded innovation prizes or expanded public grants, would more effectively stimulate the creation of medically significant treatments without the deadweight loss of patent monopolies.

Based on the arguments presented, match each statement below to the correct description of the authors' respective stances.

Read the following two passages regarding the legal treatment of Indigenous oral histories.

Passage A
Courts adjudicating Indigenous land claims often struggle with the admissibility of oral histories. The impulse to force oral traditions into the rigid taxonomy of Western documentary evidence is epistemologically flawed. Oral histories are not merely unwritten archives; they are dynamic narratives encoding moral truths and social structures alongside historical events. When courts attempt to extract objective "facts" from these narratives using standard evidentiary tests, they inevitably strip the tradition of its cultural context. To respect Indigenous legal traditions, jurisprudence must develop a sui generis framework for oral histories—one that does not subordinate them to documentary standards of empirical verification, but recognizes their distinct epistemic authority.

Passage B
Some legal scholars argue for evaluating Indigenous oral histories through a bespoke framework, separate from the standard rules of evidence used for documentary records. This approach is ultimately legally hazardous. By exempting oral traditions from the rigorous empirical scrutiny applied to written texts, proponents inadvertently relegate Indigenous claims to a second-class epistemic status. If oral histories are to bear the profound weight of resolving modern property disputes, they must be treated as fully commensurate with documentary evidence. This means subjecting them to the same demanding standards of objective historical verification. To do otherwise is to paternalistically imply that Indigenous historical accounts cannot withstand the crucible of rigorous factual analysis.

Based on the passages, is it true or false that the authors disagree over whether standard evidentiary rules are capable of accommodating the cultural and moral significance of Indigenous oral histories?

Passage A
In theoretical physics, when empirical data is scarce, the aesthetic elegance of a theory—its mathematical symmetry and conceptual simplicity—often serves as a crucial compass. Historically, physicists like Paul Dirac have posited that a beautiful equation is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits experimental data. This is not mere romanticism; mathematical elegance frequently reflects deep structural truths about the universe. When formulating a new physical law, a theory's aesthetic coherence provides legitimate heuristic justification for its pursuit, even before definitive experimental verification is available.

Passage B
The contemporary stagnation in fundamental physics can be largely attributed to the field's obsession with "beautiful" math. The universe is under no obligation to be elegant or comprehensible to human cognitive biases. Yet, theorists consistently prioritize mathematical symmetry over testable predictions, pouring resources into elegant but empirically barren frameworks. Aesthetic criteria are subjective and culturally conditioned, making them inherently unscientific tools for evaluating physical reality. If a theory cannot produce novel, testable predictions, its mathematical beauty is irrelevant; it should never be treated as a reliable guide to fundamental physical truths.

It can be inferred from the text that the authors of Passage A and Passage B hold conflicting views regarding which one of the following?

Passage A
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty establishes that outer space is the "province of all mankind" and explicitly forbids national appropriation by claim of sovereignty. Consequently, the unilateral extraction and privatization of space resources, such as asteroid mining by private corporations, violates the spirit of international law. Because corporations operate under the legal frameworks of their host nations, a nation granting extraction rights to a corporation is effectively exercising a sovereign claim over that celestial body. Until a comprehensive international regulatory regime is established—one that ensures the equitable distribution of space-derived wealth among all nations—private extraction efforts must be viewed as legally invalid and inherently destabilizing to global equity.

Passage B
Critics of commercial space extraction often conflate national appropriation with private property rights, a distinction well-established in international law. The Outer Space Treaty prohibits nations from claiming territory in space, but it is silent on the ownership of resources once they are removed from a celestial body. This is analogous to international waters: a nation cannot claim sovereignty over the high seas, but private entities are entitled to own the fish they extract from them. Without the legal certainty of property rights over extracted materials, the astronomical capital investments required for space mining will never materialize. Therefore, domestic legislation recognizing the right of private entities to own what they extract does not constitute a sovereign territorial claim, but rather a necessary prerequisite for the development of a space economy.

Based on the arguments presented in the passages, over which of the following propositions would the two authors be most likely to disagree?

Read the following two passages regarding the methodological treatment of anomalous data in the physical sciences.

Passage A
In the practice of observational astronomy, the encounter with anomalous data—measurements that stubbornly refuse to align with the predictions of the prevailing theoretical framework—must be treated not as a minor nuisance, but as a mandate for immediate and rigorous theoretical re-evaluation. To dismiss such discrepancies as mere instrumental noise, or to intentionally relegate them to the margins of scientific inquiry, is to betray the fundamental empiricism of the discipline. When planetary orbits deviate even infinitesimally from calculated trajectories, it is precisely this deviation that often harbors the seed of the next theoretical revolution. The integrity of the scientific method demands that these known anomalies be placed at the center of astronomical discourse, forcing the current paradigm to either robustly account for them or yield to a more comprehensive framework. Tolerating confirmed anomalies without aggressive investigation breeds theoretical complacency.

Passage B
The history of physics and astronomy reveals a pragmatic truth: at any given moment, the dominant theoretical paradigm is swimming in a sea of anomalous data. If scientists were to halt their primary research programs to aggressively scrutinize every observational discrepancy, scientific progress would be completely paralyzed. Many anomalies are ultimately resolved not by grand theoretical revolutions, but by eventual improvements in instrumentation or by the identification of subtle, previously unmodeled background variables. Consequently, it is an entirely rational and methodologically sound practice for researchers to deliberately bracket or set aside minor anomalies, continuing to refine and apply the dominant theory in the interim. Only when an anomaly proves extraordinarily persistent, and fundamentally disrupts the core utility of the paradigm, does it warrant the concerted, immediate attention of the theoretical community.

Based on the passages, the authors would be most likely to disagree over whether: