马上要考了，argument 153, 恳求好心人点评

ucbearUID: 2722156

Merely depended on a series of unwarranted assumptions, theauthor claims that in order to stop the erosion of beach sand along the shoresof Tria Island, which is a serious threat to the island and the touristindustry, they should charge people for using the beaches.In order to support its claim, the author points out thatalthough this solution might annoy a few tourists in the short term, it willreduce the number of people and raise money for replenishing the sand. He alsocites that by replenishing the sand, the buildings on the nearby island will beprotected from the damage of severe storms and the tourist industry will alsobe improved as well. I find the argument logically unconvincing in threecritical respects.


A threshold problem in the argument involves that the authorprovide no evidence to prove that the solution will necessarily lead togathering money for replenishing the sand. It is highly possible that thesolution will not be so effective as proposed. For example, due to the declineof the number of people using the beach, the money raised by the small customerflux might not
afford to replenishthe sand. Since the author does not respond to this concern, the assumptionthat the solution will collect money to replenish the sand is suspect.

Yet another problem in this argument is that the authorsuffers from a fallacy of false analogy in assuming that the Tria Island willalso protect the buildings by replenishing the sand as Batia does. The authorfails to overlook the latent difference between Tria and Batia, which mightbring about the different result for Tria. For example, the geographicdifference between Tria and Batia is totally different, which might means thatthe measurement of protecting the Tria should be more strict than Batia.Replenishing the sand is enough for protecting the Batia but not Tria. Withoutconsidering these or other dissimilarities between Tria and Batia, any claimrested on the analogy would be premature.

Finally, it is too hasty to draw the conclusion that thetourist industry will improve over the long term while ignoring other possiblephenomenon. After all, the author provides no evidence to substantiate it.Perhaps, after charges for the using the beach is needed, the tourists chooseother free beaches nearby where they can enjoy the similar beach and oceanview.
Or perhaps, even if thebeach’s erosion is improved but the establishment of the surrounded environmentis inferior, which restrict the development of the tourist industry. Until theauthor provide enough evidence, I remain unconvinced the conclusion reached inthe argument.

To sum up, the conclusion reached in this argument isinvalid and misleading. To bolster it, the author should provide clearerevidence—by the way of survey and investigation—that
by charging for the beach will gather enough money toreplenish the sand. To strengthen the conclusion, the author should alsoprovide more evidence that the erosion of sand is the only factor protectingbuildings from the severe storm rather than other factors. To better assess theargument, it would be useful to know about the available free beaches nearby.Also useful would be any information about
the surrounding environment which might also effect thetourist industry development.