[a习作temp] Argument137【Goal to Reach Excellence 小组】第十四次作业 [复制链接]

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发表于 2008-2-17 23:49:38 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

Argument137.The following appeared in an editorial in the Mason City newspaper.

"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby MasonRiver 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 MasonRiver. 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
MasonRiver."

In this argument, the arguer claims that the Mason City council should to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the MasonRiver, by assuming that the recreational use of the rivers is like to increase as long as the condition of the water is improved. To support this assumption, the arguer cites the results of a survey that the region's residents rank water sports as a favorite form of recreation for a long time. However, a close scrutiny reveals that this argument suffers from many fallacies and unconvincing as it stands.

In the first place, the causal relationship between the people's avoiding of the river and the water's lacking of the cleanness is unwarranted. No evidence is provided that the avoiding of the river for recreation is because that the water is not clean enough. Actually, there may be other factors could contribute to the few recreational activities. For example, perhaps the region's residents are busy in their works and social activities. And it is equally possible that they are fond of other forms of recreations such as football, cycling, and golf. The water sports may be their favorite form of recreation, they still could choose not to do them. Without ruling out these factors, it is presumptuous to conclude that the avoiding of the river was resulted from the lack of quality of the water in the river.

In the second place, the arguer unfairly consumes that the condition of the water will indeed improved after the agency responsible for rivers has announced plans to clean up MasonRiver. While, action speak loudly than words. We can not come to the conclusion just from a announcement of agency whose background information and working efficiency we know nothing about. Maybe it is a profitable organization which will not do any business without interests. And it is also possible that the condition of the river is so bad that the agency is not able to turn the condition back to the past. So the arguer's assumption is unsubstantiated and can not lend enough support to this argument.

In the third place, even if the condition of the water will be ameliorated under the regulation of the agency, and the recreation use of the river is increased, it does not follow that the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for the improvements of the publicly owned lands along the MasonRiver. Maybe people come to the river only for water sports, but not for the facilities or services on the lands along the river. So the fund of the improvements of these lands could largely be meaningless. The arguer also fails take into consideration of the balance of the government's revenue and cost, maybe it is already suffers from a severe deficit. So before the recommends been provided, the arguer have to make further study from other different angles.

In sum, the argument is invalid and not persuasive. To make the argument more convincing, the arguer would have to provide more information concerning the agency's efficiency and the condition of the water of river. Moreover, the arguer must prove that the facilities and the water activity services are necessary to the residents who will recreate in the river to solidify the conclusion.