[习作点评] argument,请各位大神给点意见 [复制链接]

ZJ-Lee
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电梯直达

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发表于 2014-8-10 12:35:23 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

题目："A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of bicycle-related accidents has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

Grounding on the 10- year-long survey of effectiveness of wearing a bicycle-helmet, supposing that the percentage of all bicyclists who reported wearing helmets have increased from 30 to 80, and another study that the number of bicycle-related accidents has increased 200 percent during the same period, the author accordingly drew a conclusion that government should not encourage riders to wear helmets. Carefully examination of these supporting evidences, however, reveals that it is unconvincing in some aspects

To begin with, by relying on that the 200% increase in the number of accidents, is likely that the government should not encourage riders to wear helmets. However the author has not provided evidence that the bicycle-related accident rate is also increasing during the same period. Common senses tell us that the riding accidents increase because there are more people using bicycles than those 10 years ago. Although the number of this accidents which is lead by the increasing of bicyclists has increased 200%, it is entirely possible that this accident rate remain unchanged or keeps decreasing in the 10-year period. Without considering and ruling out the possibility of increasing riding accident rate, the conclusion based on the assumption that this type of accidents is increasing cannot convince me.

Moreover, although the number of the riders wearing helmets shows the same increase trend as does the number of bicycle-related accidents at the same period, it does not necessarily prove that those who wearing helmets are the people who have happened the bicycle-related accidents.
Since the author has not provide any information about the people who have taken this type of accidents, it is entirely possible that these people were not wearing helmets when the accidents happened. Perhaps those who wear helmets are more careful than those who do not wear helmets, when riding on a road , for protecting any accidents from happening. Without considering and eliminating this possibility, the conclusion drew on the assumption is not convincing.

Last but not least, the author assumes that all other factors affecting this pattern accidents remained unchanged in past 10 years. Yet the author fails to provide any evidence to support this assumption. It is quite possible that other factors, such as the speed of riding bicycles, obeying the traffic rules and so on, can lead this accident. Perhaps these riding behaviors are not the causes of the accidents, it is more likely that all these accidents happened in the busiest traffic period and thus were caused by the careless drivers or those who do have poor driving behaviors. The author cannot convince me the assumption, unless he or she has ruled out any other factor affecting the bicycle accidents.

In sum, the conclusion reached in this argument is logically flawed and therefore unconvincing. To strengthen it, the author should provide clearer evidence, such as the bicycle-related accident rate, more detail information about riders who have taken accidents and the detailed traffic situation of these accidents. Moreover, I would suspend my judgment about the trustworthiness of this argument until the author provides more details about whether wearing helmets is major cause of bicycle-related accidents and whether the government should persuade the riders do not wear helmets for lowing the happen-chance of bicycle accidents