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What does this phrase ("..for who knows which ideas now considered ...might one day upset the prevailing paradigm") mean?

English Language & Usage Asked by rayanisran on September 19, 2020

The following sentence is a GRE style text-completion sentence, where you must fill in each blank from only one of three enlisted options.

It is telling that some scientific ideas that were once (i) _______ have recently garnered (ii) _______ the intelligentsia, for who knows which ideas now considered (iii) _______ might one day upset the prevailing paradigms.

(i) forgotten
ridiculed
protected

(ii) disapprobation from
currency amongst
scorn from

(iii) overtly elaborate
patently false
beyond reproach

The answers given are ridiculed, currency amongst and patently false respectively.

I am struggling to understand the part of the sentence after the comma

for who knows which ideas now considered (iii) _______ might one day upset the prevailing paradigms.

What does this mean? That there are ideas that sometime in the future will upset the prevailing, accepted view? How does this clue help to decide what answer goes in option (iii)? Without this, I’m also unable to answer the first two blanks.

2 Answers

You can understand from the clues "now considered" and "might one day" that you have contrast here. So, since the second part says the ideas upset the prevailing paradigms in the future, the very same ideas must not upset them now. As the prevailing paradigms do not welcome viable new ideas (they will upset them), you should search for a negative word. Both "overtly elaborate" and "beyond reproach" are positive. The only negative one is "patently false."

Answered by MKF on September 19, 2020

i ridicule ii currency among iii patently false

This means there is at present a ridiculed idea that sometime in the future will upset the prevailing, accepted view.

How does this clue help to decide what answer goes in option (iii)? When the idea is re-examined, and found to be credible, it usurps the current one.

Answered by lbf on September 19, 2020

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