TOPIC: ARGUMENT131 - The following appeared in an environmental newsletter published in Tria Island.
"The marine sanctuary on Tria Island was established to protect certain marine mammals. Its regulations ban dumping and offshore oil drilling within 20 miles of Tria, but fishing is not banned. Currently many fish populations in Tria's waters are declining, a situation blamed on pollution. In contrast, the marine sanctuary on Omni Island has regulations that ban dumping, offshore oil drilling, and fishing within 10 miles of Omni and Omni reports no significant decline in its fish populations. Clearly, the decline in fish populations in Tria's waters is the result of overfishing, not pollution. Therefore, the best way to restore Tria's fish populations and to protect all of Tria's marine wildlife is to abandon our regulations and adopt those of Omni."
WORDS: 314
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2009-7-31 21:03:35
In this argument, the author concludes that the Tria Island should abandon its regulations and adopt Omni's in order to restore its fish populations and protect all of its marine wildlife. To support his conclusion, the author cites the example of Omni Island which has regulations that ban fishing. However, the argument suffers from a few flaws.
To begin with, the author assumes too hastily that the decline in fish populations in Tria's waters should blame on overfishing.
Firstly, there are many other nature factors which would influence the fish population, such as water temperature, spaning season, extreme weather phenomenon and so forth. Secondly,
the author fails to prove that the banned actions have not happened. If the water is polluted, the fish population will probably decrease.
Besides, the oil may also float from other place. All these sceranios, if true, will undermine the author's conclusion that overfishing should be responsible for decline in fish populations.
In additon, even assuming that overfishing leads to the decline in fish populations, the author falsely concludes that Tria should follow the example of Omni. The author overlooks the differences between the two Islands. There might be disparity in Island weather, water quality, fish sorts and so on. These defferences will make Omni's regulations unsuccessful in Tria. What's more, the author doesn't prove that the fish caught in Tria is within 10 miles of Tria, which will undermine the conclusion.
Further more, even assuming that the Omni's regulation will success in Tria, the argument still has some flaws. First, the Omni's regulations might not be the best one. There are may be better ones such as stricker ban on dumping. Second, the Omni's regulation cannot guarantee to protect all the marine wildlife.
To sum up, the author fails to substantiate his conclusion that Tria should adopt Omni's regulations. To support his conclusion, the author should provides more information.作者: xhl1988 时间: 2009-8-1 07:39:43