第一篇ARGU，求互批【argument 41】

沅澧UID: 3150187

由于是第一篇，所以肯定是漏洞百出了，各位前辈同仁多多指教了，纰漏越多进步的空间也就越大哈，我不怕批的，嘿嘿

The following appeared in a health newsletter.

"A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of bicycle-related accidents has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets."

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

The author of the newsletter draws a conclusion that the government should pay more attention to the education of people about the bicycle safety but less to the wearing helmets. Maybe it seems reasonable when he or she provides some actual evidence about what happened after the helmets increasing during these years. But thinking of the stated and unstated assumptions the author had in this argument, you can find that the argument is not that warranted.

The arguer of the argument mentioned they had a ten-year-long study of the goodness of wearing helmets so the population of the users reached almost eighty percent while it was 35 percent ten years ago. And as a poor result that the accidents increasing 200 percent. So the author thought that the increasing of wearing helmets led to the increasing the accidents. It was obviously that there was a stated assumption that the government played an important role in this case because it encouraged the study. But we thought the stated assumption cannot help to argue this conclusion at all as there may be some other factors for the increasing. Of course the study is one of the factors, but the price is a more significant one for people having enough money to buy the helmet to protect themselves nowadays. The companies' advertising and the users' introduction are other reasons for the increasing. So, not only the government should respond for the increasing, but a plenty of people if we agree that the increasing of wearing helmets is not right.

But there is another problem for this stated assumption we have talked above that how wearing helmets increasing can lead to more accidents as we all know it is an efficient tool to protect the bicycle users. We can find many reasonable reasons for accidents. As the development of our society, there are more and more bicycles, motorbikes and cars around us which make the traffic so crowded. And maybe the changing of the traffic rules should be responsible for the accidents. The author also gives us some unstated assumption that the roads for the bicycle are in good conditions and the weather is suitable for using bicycle just as ten years ago, but we just don't get these information. As there is not enough significant evidence, the stated and unstated assumptions are sounds unwarranted. To prove the assumptions, the author should understand the right reason for the increasing of the accidents.

The writer argued the suggestion he or she provided at last can reduce the serious injury from bicycle accident. It seemed the method cannot that likely related to the main thing he or she have argued even though we ignore all the holes we talked above. You see, there are many kinds of accidents: in some case, it is very serious which makes some people die or seriously injured; and in some other cases, the situation is not as serious. But obviously the author wrongly assumed that all the accidents are that serious, so the suggestion cannot help to solve the problem at all. And on the other hand, though we regarded all the accidents were serious, it was suspicious whether the method can work. And as we provide enough perspectives, we don't need to analysis anything more.