argument45 同主题写作第6期

cpuliuwenUID: 2203373

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."


In this editorial, the arguer 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. To support this conclusion, the arguer cites the results of reports from local hunters. In addition, the arguer points out that the reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt. As it stands, the argument suffers from several critical flaws as follows.

To begin with, the report lacks credibility, and therefore there is no guarantee that the deer populations are really decreasing. The responses of the local hunters may be not reliable. It is entirely possible that only a small portion of the deer are seen by the hunters. It is equally possible that local hunter had lied to the report conductor on purpose to prevent hunters from other places to come here to catch deer which would be a big competition with them. As a result, we are not sure about whether the deer populations is less than before since no sufficient evidence to confirm the reliability of the report.

In addition, the arguer falsely assume that recent global warming trends caused the sea ice to melt. In reality, if the degree of global warming trends are not too large, for example, the temperature is just 0.1 degree centigrade higher than before, the sea ice may be not obviously affected by the temperature change. Another possibility is that ice on other places rather than the arctic region melts because of the global warming trends, so the ice on which arctic deer live is little influenced.

Furthermore, even if the global warming trends indeed cuse the ice to melt, the arguer should not simply infer that the deer can not able to follow the age-old migration pattern. Perhaps, although the temperature is high enough to make the ice melt in some time of the year, in other time, the ice can be formed to ensure the deer across the sea in time.

Finally, even if the deer can not cross the sea according to their original patterns, the arguer fails to establish a causal relationship between this fact and the decline of the deer populations. Maybe the decline of the deer population are cause by other factors, such as, the decreasing supply of food as a result of environmental pollution, the arising number of the hunters, etc. Any of the cases, if true, would make the arguer's conclusion incredible.

To sum up, the conclusion reached in this editorial lacks credibility since the analysis does not lend strong support to the arguer's claim. To make the argument more convincing, the arguer would have to provide more specific evidence to show that the deer population is actually declining and rule out other factors contributing to the decline.

[ 本帖最后由 cpuliuwen 于 2006-8-1 20:43 编辑 ]

helenlhhUID: 2127690

模版化比较严重，建议看看imong关于argument的贴子

https://bbs.gter.net/thread-134092-1-1.html

expire7UID: 2160574

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