DA小组 第2次作业 argument45 BY Gassa

GassaUID: 2498402

45.Thefollowing appeared as an editorial in a wildlife journal.

"Arcticdeer live on islands in Canada's arctic region. They search for food by movingover ice from island to island during the course of a year. Their habitat islimited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed, and coldenough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating theislands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according toreports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since thesereports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea iceto melt, we can conclude that the decline in arctic deer populations is theresult of deer being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns acrossthe frozen sea."


1.
Hastygeneration global warming ！= arcticregion 也暖和;
2.
不能migration à deer decline 不成立

如果真的变暖，那都有吃的，不用迁徙了
3.
hunterreport没有说服力

Deer经过长期hunter的斗争，知道如何躲避hunter；

Hunter捕杀过多而没有报告；

Deer不用迁徙，所以类人找不到了

In this argument, the editor conclude that theglobal warming trends affect the migration of arctic deer, then this result inthe declination of deer population. To support that the editor mention the coincidentreport from local hunters which also suggest that the decreasing number of deer.However, the argument relies on series of fallacies, which render itunconvincing as it stands.

Firstly, the global warming trends do notindicate the increasing number of arctic temperature. As we know, the globalwarming is the increasing trends of global average temperature. However, thereis no directly relationship between the global warmth and the temperature inArctic. It is possible that although the average temperature in earth raise,the temperature in Arctic still remain as usual, or even go down. Even the temperatureincrease, there are also no evidence shows the increment of the temperature isenough to cause the ice melting. Before the editor provide enough evidence tosupport the global warming can lead to melt ice at Arctic, this assertion isunreliable.

Secondly, even if we accept that the globalwarming cause the melting ice in Arctic, the editor still fail to build thecause-effect relationship between obstruction of migration and declination ofdeer population. In the argument, the editor mentions that the arctic deer feedon the plants which are accustomed to warm areas. There is a Scenario that theincreasing temperature may allow these plants grow widely to provide the enoughfood resource for the arctic deer on each island. Thus, it is unnecessary fordeer to move from one island to the other. Then, the number of deer populationat least may maintain stably. Until the editor rule out of this possibility,this assertion is unconvincing.

Finally, the editor cites the report fromlocal hunters which suggest the declination of the deer population. However,the credibility of the report is untrustworthy. It is possible that the arcticdeer are limited on the separating islands which the hunters cannot reach,though the actual number is as many as before. In addition, there is alsopossibility that the hunters kill the more deer for their interest, and thenprovide the unreal report to disguise their hunting activity.

In conclusion, the assertion isunpersuasive as it stands. To strengthen that argument, the editor would haveto provide enough evidence to support the assumption that the global warmingcan cause to melt ice in Arctic. To better evaluate the argument, the authoralso would need to carefully establish the relationship between obstruction ofmigration and declination of deer population