Argument 17

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This argument tries to persuade residents of Clearview to vote for Ann Green, rather than Frank Braun. To support his opinion, the editor cites evidence that the two candidates belong to two different organizations, Good Earth Coalition and Town Council. Then, the editor gives an example to show the current members of Town Council are not protecting environment. Further the editor asserts that environmental problems will be solved if Ann Green is elected. At first glance, the editor’s viewpoint seems reasonable, but close analyses reveals that it omits some important concerns that should be addressed to substantiate the argument.

First, to illustrate the current Town Council does not concern on environment problems, the editor gives a statistical evidence. From this evidence, the editor observes a correlation between the increase of the number of factories in Clearview and air pollution. However the editor fails to rule out other possible explanations for air pollution. For example, it is possible that the pollution owns to the increase of private vehicles, or the air pollution is mainly the result of many new-built steel companies of neighboring towns, rather than Clearview’s factories that are equipped with post-processing technology to decrease the air pollution. Any of these factors might lead to air pollution. Without ruling out all other factors it is unfair to conclude that factories in Clearview are responsible for air pollution. In addition, in this example the editor fails to provide information regarding the absolute numbers of factories in this area and cases of respiratory illness, which leads to the statistical evidence less significant.

Second, even we assume that the increased air pollution and respiratory illness have relation to these factories, we can still not reach a conclusion that Frank Braun is not protecting environment just because he is one of the numbers of Town Council. For instance, in the current town council are there 100 members, in which 90 of them support to open more factories and only 10 refuse it. However Frank Braun belongs to the later, who is strongly unsatisfied with opening more factories for the reason of environment. Only by offering evidence that Frank Braun has active role in the council’s decision on increasing the number of factories, can the editor convince me that Frank Braun does not take pollution problems seriously.

Last but not least, although we confess that Frank Braun prefers developing industry to protecting environment, the editor cannot convince us that Ann Green is professional enough to deal with all the environmental problems correctly. Environmental problems include far more than industrial air and water pollutions, and there are many other types of pollution, such as sand storm which beyond the scope of industry and are difficult to be solved. Therefore, it is not precise to predict that Ann Green can deal with the environmental problems without further investigation about her ability.

To sum up, this editor fails to substantiate its claim that Ann Green is worthy to vote, because the evidences cited in the analysis do not lend strong support to what the editor maintains. To make the argument more convincing, the editor has to provide more information with regard to the existence of closing relation between factories and air pollution and respiratory illness. Additionally, he would have to demonstrate that Frank Braun is an advocator of industrialism, and meanwhile Ann Green is competent in environmental protection. Therefore, if the editor has included the given factors discussed above, it would have been more through and logically acceptable.