Question 9.

Option B is the correct answer. 

The author mentions Carrier, Babbage, and Edison to emphasize that the inventors' original intentions were not related to the unexpected societal impacts their inventions had:

Option A: The secondary effects are shown as surprising or leading to unforeseen societal changes, rather than leading to more inventions.

Option C: The passage doesn't claim that the unintended consequences were largely beneficial. While some consequences may have been beneficial (like the telescope and microscope from the printing press), others (like climate change ) have been harmful.

Option D: This is close, but it's not the main point. The intended purpose of the inventions may have been different from their actual use, but the author’s primary argument is about how the inventors could not have predicted the full societal impacts of their inventions, rather than focusing on how inventions end up being used for different purposes.