argument 45 修改版

费话先生UID: 2788924

TOPIC: ARGUMENT45 - The following appeared as an editorial in a wildlife journal.

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





Merely based on several substantiated assumptions and reports with vague information, the author concludes than the recent global warming trends caused the sea ice to melt and hence decline the arctic deer population. However, the argument is poor-reasoned and need closer scrutiny.

The threshold problem is that whether the population of arctic deer really declined. Except for a few reports from the local hunters, the author doesn't give any reliable statistics to demonstrate that. It's possible that the arctic deer move to a new habitat where is far away from human's habitat to prevent themselves from killing by the hunters. Or the groups of arctic deer find another favorable habitat with more plants they need, so they just leave their old habitat, as a consequence the hunters less frequently see them than before. Either scenario, if true, will weaken the assumption that the number of the arctic deer did decline. Thus, without more reliable scientific investigate, the author cannot regard the subjective judgment or direct observation of hunters as sufficiently reliable.

Suppose that the global warming to some extent accelerate the melting of sea ice, the author claims that the arctic deer wouldn’t change their old-aged migration across the frozen Iceland and accordingly result in their survival crisis. However, the author fails to underpin the assumption with strong evidence (in fact, no evidence). Perhaps, the arctic deer migrates across to another Iceland just to seek for more plants; therefore, if there are enough plants in the Iceland where they currently lived, they will be less likely to migrate. As the author states, the global warming causes the increase of temperature in Canada which may conduce to the growing of plants. As a result, the arctic deer would possibly adapt to the changed environment and therefore be safe from the survival crisis.

Even if the less of arctic deer is unfortunately true, the author cannot justifiably equate the connection between the declining population of arctic deer and the global warming with cause and effect relationship. The author gives no evidence the global warming have a marked influence on the ice in Canada' arctic region. Perhaps, the global warming is not so severe enough to melt the ice in Canada (since the temperature in Canada is so low owing to its high latitude). Or the amount of melting ice increases a little and can be neglect with respect to the impact on the arctic deer habitat. Until the author demonstrates the global warming virtually have influenced the habitat of arctic deer and hence decline their population, I cannot accept the assumption at all.

Again, the author fails to take other alternative explanations to the less of arctic deer population into account. It's possible that more arctic deer dead during the past years due to the overhunting of human being rather than the melting ice. Also, the author ignores other possible changes of climate which may also produce adverse effects on the survival of arctic deer except the global warming. Those changes may include the encroachment of arctic deer’s habitats because of the increase of human population. In short, without ruling out other possible alternatives, the author cannot safely say that global warming is attributable to the less of arctic deer.


In sum, the argument is far away from satisfactorily reliable based on several subjective assumptions. To bolster the argument, the author should provide more statistics to demonstrate the decline of arctic deer population. Also he’d better prove his assumption that the arctic deer will stick to their conventional patterns. If possible, the author need substantiate the declining, if really exists, is the result of global warming other than other possible causes.

lingli_xiaoaiUID: 172506

base on your argument, the most important question is

whether the population of arctic deer really declined

but the declination of deer population is the reason why the argument is even written, I know the habit of questioning the report, the survey, ---the reason to wahy we bother to discuss this matter at the first place.....it was questionable measure to take..for example,  I wrote an assay want to prove that I am proud of being a Chinese, then I make a conclusion that  since I did xxxx ,so  I am proud. you try to weaken my argument, but beginning with questioning that I didn't prove the fact that  I am a Chinese. It was kind of pointless, and even it is not pointless, it certainly not the most important point you want to begin with.

I consider questioning if the number of deer really decline or not the weakest point, one may discuss in the end of the argument, instead of at the very beginning.

to me, since the author' s conclusion is clearly state as "decline in arctic deer populations is the result of deer being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea." So if this is the really cause of declination of deer population is the most important thing you want to attack first on top of any others.

then you can think about what evidence are used to make this conclusion....

1, is there any evidence suggesting those deer stopping migration follow their old patterns?

yes, sea ice melts... but doesn't it enough to prevent the deer from migration?

2, what evidence supports that if deer cannot migrate during the winter, they will die? why they have to across the sea? simply because they need to? (cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. ) this evidence didn't answer any of my concerns.

• what is offered as evidence, support, or proof
• what is explicitly stated, claimed, or concluded
• what is assumed or supposed, perhaps without justification or proof
• what is not stated, but necessarily follows from what is stated

these four lines should be remembered always, when you're writing an argument. You can think like if you were the speaker, how you could make this argument stronger, what evidence you can provide instead, then questioning the speaker fail to provide those evidence.  

in sum, you argument is good, especially paragraph  2 and 3. but if you ask me, if this is 6response, i would say no. You can read 6 score response on [awintro ] one more time to get a better idea what 6 point response should be.