argument48 Ares战队第二次作业(by victor)

victorduguUID: 2176422

48.The following appeared in a newspaper article published in the country of Corpora.



"Twenty years ago, one half of all citizens in Corpora met the standards for adequate physical fitness as then defined by the national advisory board on physical fitness. Today, the board says that only one quarter of all citizens are adequately fit and suggests that spending too much time using computers may be the reason. But since overall fitness levels are highest in regions of Corpora where levels of computer ownership are also highest, it is clear that using computers has not made citizens less physically fit. Instead, as shown by this year's unusually low expenditures on fitness-related products and services, the recent decline in the economy is most likely the cause, and fitness levels will improve when the economy does."

作者认为随着经济的改善会导致fitness level的改善，前提是经济的decline导致了low expenditure on fitness-related products, 给出的论据是fitness比二十年前下降了许多，并且指出这不是由using computer所导致的。

1) 没有充分的证据表明今天的fitness下降了。作者的论据是二十年前有一半人达到fitness，而今天只有one quarter。但是the standard of  fitness may have modified by the board. 如果仍用过去的标准的话，说不定today's fitness level比原来的还要高。
2)作者认为using computer不是导致fitness的原因，因而只可能是low expenditures导致的。即使不是using computer  导致的，也有可能是其他原因导致的，比如In the past twenty years, increase of cars has exacerbated the air pollution. 比如年龄结构的变化，have more elders. 比如人们的饮食习惯发生改变，unhealthy diet may be the chief criminal.
3)即使fitness 的下降是由人们的low expenditure所导致的，也没有充分的理由证明这是由decline in the economy所导致的。人们花的钱少很有可能是他们的investment has changed，有可能他们更关注其他方面，比如更热衷于购买汽车，或者在children's education投资了许多，从而导致了花的少。而且即使经济状况变好了，也不见得人们花在fitness-related products and service的钱会增多。

The author concludes that if the economy of Corpora can improve in the next years, the fitness levels will be better off. To support his conclusion, he points out that the fitness levels in the country are lower comparing with those twenty years ago. Further more, he indicates that it is not using computer that has caused the descent of fitness levels. In addition, he infers that decline in the economy is responsible for the low expenditures on fitness-related products and services. However, these alone don't constitute a logical argument. As far as I am concerned, this argument suffers the following flaws.

A threshold problem with this argument is that there is not enough evidence to prove that the health condition in the country of Corpora has worse off. Although the national advisory board says only one quarter of all citizens are adequately fit today while the rate was fifty percent twenty years ago, it is entirely possible that the standard of fitness defined by the board has been modified to be more strict. Thus if the today's fitness levels were judged by the standard defined twenty years ago, the rate might be more than half. It is also possible that the statistics have resulted from groups of different age structure, with more elders being investigated today. Without ruling out such possibilities, the arguer cannot justifiably conclude that today's heath conditions of the people are worse.

A second problem is that even assuming using computer is not the reason for the descent of fitness levels, the author falsely assumes that the descent must be attributable to low expenditures on fitness-related products and services. This "either-or" argument is fallacious in that it ignores other possible causes of the decline of health condition. For example, perhaps in the last twenty years, increase of cars has exacerbated the air pollution, thus brought down the fitness levels. It is also likely that the diet people favor today is less healthy than that of twenty years ago. Besides, it is also possible that aging has produced more elders in Corpora. Therefore, the argument is unwarranted without ruling out such possibilities.

A third problem with the argument is that even assuming that the decline of fitness levels is caused by low expenditures on fitness-related products and services, the arguer fails to provide sufficient evidence to support that it is the decline in economy that has led to the low expenditures. The reason why people spend less money on fitness-related products may be that they are not interested in them as before. For example, they may be enthusiastic in investing money in other fields such as luxuries, the children's education. Besides, there is no evidence that even if the economy in the country gets promoted, people will spend more money on fitness-related products.

To sum up, to make his argument more convincing, the author would have to provide more information with regard to whether fitness standard define by the national advisory board has changed or not. Additionally, he would have to substantiate that is there other factors that have affected the health condition of the people. Finally, he needs to provide more evidence that the expenditure will rise when the economy improves. Therefore, if the argument had included the given factors discussed above, the author's statement would have been more logically thorough.

Time: 2 hours

baihe1988UID: 2203505

由于word不能看到好多字体什么的原因，我上传附件了！
呵呵~

[ 本帖最后由 baihe1988 于 2006-7-2 17:39 编辑 ]