argument47 【微观状态】 第七次作业 求拍!

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Argument47
Scientists studying historical weather patterns have discovered that in the mid-sixth century, Earth suddenly became significantly cooler. Although few historical records survive from that time, some accounts found both in Asia and Europe mention a dimming of the sun and extremely cold temperatures. Either a huge volcanic eruption or a large meteorite colliding with Earth could have created a large dust cloud throughout Earth's atmosphere that would have been capable of blocking enough sunlight to lower global temperatures significantly. A large meteorite collision, however, would probably create a sudden bright flash of light, and no extant historical records of the time mention such a flash. Some surviving Asian historical records of the time, however, mention a loud boom that would be consistent with a volcanic eruption. Therefore, the cooling was probably caused by a volcanic eruption.

By analyzing the possible phenomena coming with volcanic eruption and meteorite colliding with Earth, and also citing some surviving historical records from that time, the arguer concludes that the sudden cooling in the mid-sixth century was probably caused by a volcanic eruption. This argument sounds reasonable at the first glance, careful scrutiny will reveal it suffers from several flaws thus is not convincing as it stands.

To begin with, the arguer cites a loud boom in some surviving Asian and Europe historical records, and asserts that it might be consistent with a volcanic eruption, but fails to give out any evidence to show that there is causal relationship between these two. It could be entirely the case that the loud boom is because of the meteorite collided with Earth, or might be an earthquake somewhere at that time. And, even if assuming that the loud boom is because of volcanic eruption, without the historical records to show it happened before the cooling of Earth, the arguer’s assumption is groundless. It is possible that the loud boom in the record was happened after the globalize decrease of temperature. Without ruling out all the possibilities, it is hard to agree on the arguer’s first assumption.

The arguer further cites a fact that no historical records that mentioned about a sudden bright flash of light have been found, which probably created by a meteorite collision. It could be the case that the collision was happened in a place that no human lived at that time, like Antarctica, or though had some people lived there, the people at that time had no ability to record this phenomenon using documentations. It might be another case that the sudden bright flash of light really happened, and also been recorded, but historical records of this part has been lost during the long history because of some reason. The two cases mentioned above, if either could be true, will make the arguer’s assumption greatly questionable.

Finally, the arguer gives out the conclusion that the decreases of temperature will necessary because of a volcanic eruption by ruling out the possibility of a meteorite collision, but there may be other cases that could cause the cooling. Such catastrophic changes as the periodical change of the sun's orbit to a farther position can also contribute to the weather pattern. Without considering all the possible reasons for the decline of temperature, we can not hastily draw out the arguer’s conclusion.

In sum, to make the argument more convincing, the arguer need further investigation on all the possible causes of the cooling at that time, for the historical records, the arguer need to give out more detailed information that the huge boom happened right before the decline of temperature, and did caused because of the volcanic eruption. Also, more evidence need to show that there really had not a meteorite collision at that time.