Argument 137 没有时间写结尾是不是不要结尾也可以呢 [复制链接]

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电梯直达

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发表于 2005-8-4 15:44:34 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

------题目------
The following appeared in an editorial in the Mason City newspaper.
'At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as a favorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because they think that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. Therefore, recreational use of the river is likely to increase, so the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River.'
------正文------
The editorial concludes that recreational use of the river is likely to increase and the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvement to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River. To justify the conclusion, the editorial cites a surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports as a favorite form of recreation suggesting the announced plans to clean up the river will attract people doing sports in the river. The editorial also points out that there are complaints about the quality of the water in the river which is the reason that residents are avoiding the river. The argument may seem to be somewhat convincing at the first glance, however, after careful consideration of these factors, I find the argument suffers from several logical problems, and is therefore unpersuasive.

The major problem with this argument is that the editorial assumes too hastily that the quality of the water is the reason that results that residents be avoiding the river. However, this need not be the case. There may be many other reason that result in the avoiding the river. Perhaps the Mason River is not large and big enough for water sports like boating or is not quiet enough for fishing there. It is quite possible that people are not willing relax themselves nearby the city and want to enjoy time far away from the city. Without ruling out this and that alternative explanation, the speaker can not convince me at all.

Another problem that weakens the argument is that there is not enough information about the surveys of the region's residents. The responses must be accurate, and the respondents must be statistically significant in number and representative of the overall residents. Lacking such evidence, it is entirely possible that people who like the water sports were more willing to respond to the survey than other people. In short, the editorial could not draw any firm conclusion based on the survey results.

Finally, the conclusion that council will need to increase its budget relies on the unsubstantiated assumption that the recreational use of the river is likely to increase. However, the argument provides no evidence to affirm this assumption. In the one hand, although the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River, it does not mean that the river will be cleaned up easily in a short time. In the other hand, even the river has been cleaned up, it does not promote the activities of people in the publicly owned lands along the Mason River. Moreover, perhaps many businessmen will devote money to the publicly owned lands, the council of the city need not increase its budget at all.