Which one of the following is the most logical, scientific and rational inference that can be made from the above passage?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (d) Man and the aforementioned animals have a shared evolutionary history.
Limbs used for grasping, digging, running, swimming and flying are all built on the same bone plan. The scientific reading of such sameness beneath different uses is descent from a common ancestor — a shared evolutionary history.
- ✗ (a) The passage points to sameness across species, which is evidence of common descent; biodiversity would mean variety, the opposite emphasis.
- ✗ (b) Different uses are mentioned, but the passage's wonder is at the common pattern beneath them.
- ✗ (c) A pattern repeated in man, mole, horse, porpoise and bat is not treated as chance; 'coincidence' is not a scientific inference here.
- ✓ (d) Same five fingers, same wrist bones, same long arm bones — homologous limbs that point to shared ancestry.
Remember · When a passage stresses the same structure beneath different forms, the scientific inference is common origin, not diversity or coincidence.
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2019, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·