Discussion

Explanation:

"The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes."
The author underlines our inability to comprehend/understand a problem and the application of know ideas/solutions to address the same - this, according to him, is stupidity. Option C rewords this point - [Pushing our extant solution to fix an alien problem is stupidity]
Option A: [Comprehending a problem by applying our existing worldview is stupidity] The author states that we are unable to comprehend the problem in the first place - the option emphasises that the way in which we are comprehending the problem is incorrect [distortion #1]. Furthermore, we are applying our existing ideas/solutions to address the problem and not to comprehend it [distortion #2].

Option B: The distortion here is pretty clear - [The inability to avoid forcing our current views on a new situation is stupidity] (completely different from the idea discussed in the passage)

Option D: This does not fully capture the idea presented by the author and hence, can be rejected.

Option E: This is not implied - the author doesn't blame the "novelty of the problem" for our stupidity, and thus, this option is incorrect.

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