Argument11 我的第一篇arg，请多多指教

leongfishUID: 2176854

TOPIC：ARGUMENT 11 - The following appeared in a memo from the mayor of the town of West Egg.

"Two years ago, our consultants predicted that West Egg's landfill, which is used for garbage disposal, would be completely filled within five years. During the past two years, however, town residents have been recycling twice as much aluminum and paper as they did in previous years. Next month the amount of material recycled should further increase, since charges for garbage pickup will double. Furthermore, over ninety percent of the respondents to a recent survey said that they would do more recycling in the future. Because of our residents' strong commitment to recycling, the available space in our landfill should last for considerably longer than predicted."
WORDS：368          TIME：0:28:47          DATE：2006-2-5

To begin with, in this argument the fact that the residents have been recycling twice as much aluminum and paper as before can not convince us that the residents would produce less garbage. First, the arguer overlooks that there are many other kinds of garbage except aluminum and paper, such as glass, clothes or tyres. And he fails to provide any information about other kinds of garbage, so we do not know exactly the total amount of the garbage which has been recycled. In addition, since the fact is based on the situation two years ago, the historical change might invalidate the conclusion-- the arguer can not make sure the residents would like to recycle more garbage in the future due to the high cost.

Second, the arguer notices a correlation between the increase of the charges for garbage pickup and the more amount of material recycled, but he does not sufficiently prove that the former definitely causes the latter, although this correlation might be an evidence of a causal relationship. The doubling of the charges for garbage pickup may coincide with the decreasing of the garbage filling fees and the total fee for garbage disposal remains the same so people may continue the old way to deal with their garbage. Even if the total fee does increase, it may yet be far less than the fee for recycling, so people would not do more recycling. So before the arguer shows enough evidence that the recycling is more inexpensive or more attractive, his conclusion remains unwarranted.

Additionally, the survey in this argument suffers several statistic flaws. First, the statistics are only based on data from the respondents, and the arguer overlooks the possibility that maybe most people questioned do not make answers so the sample in this survey is not representative. Second, the strong commitment of the respondents does not mean that they will just do what they have said in the future. It is quite possible that although they have good willingness to do more recycling, they will not accept this action after all because they are too lazy to do so or the cost is too high. So the arguer must offer us the certainty that most residents in this town will definitely do more recycling rather than the possibility.

[ 本帖最后由 leongfish 于 2006-2-6 12:36 编辑 ]