Argument45 【CSMY作文互改小组】第六次作业

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Argument45

"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."

The arguer concludes that the declined number of arctic deer population is caused by that deer can not perform the age-old migration across the frozen area. To consolidate this conclusion, the arguer cited the reports of local hunters to prove the number of Arctic deer is decreasing. The arguer also cited the global warming trend to reason that it melted the ice which helps them to migration. The arguer's opinion seems reasonable, but a close consideration of his or her reasoning process will reveal several fallacies and flaws.

Firstly, merely based on the reports from local hunters, the arguer fails to convince us that the amount of arctic deer is really decreasing. Fundamentally, local hunters' report can at most demonstrate they saw less arctic deer in this region than before, but it is not equal to the real decrease in arctic deer.  For example, it is entirely possible that due to an excess hunting activity, deer are more agile to those hunters than before that on seeing these hunters, deer would immediately run away. Or it is also possible that the hunters just hunt in a relative small part of the overall arctic region while arctic deer are more likely to habitat in other islands excluding this region. Without any proof that the hunters are traversing the entire region or other specific proofs, the arguer can not persuade us that the number of arctic deer are really decreasing.

Secondly, besides the above uncertainty, the author unreasonably concludes that the decline in deer number is because deer can not follow their migration patterns. Though it is a possible factor, without any proof on the real effect of this migration process to arctic deer's living, the arguer can not arbitrarily make any assumption. From knowledge learned and our experience, lots of species’ extinction is largely because of human's excess hunting process. It is entirely possible that the decline of the number of arctic deer is also because of it. Another possible cause of this consequence is people's excess harvest of the plants on which the arctic deer feed. As lots of factors can directly cause the amount of deer to decrease, without any proof, it is not logical for the arguer to definitely believe us that it is because the change of migration patterns.

Finally, the arguer fails to relate the global warming trend with the melt of sea ice in arctic region. Just as the author mentioned, this temperature increase is a global trend, it is not equal to warm trend in arctic region. Though the global trend is to become warmer and warmer, it is entirely possible that whether in arctic region is cold than ever before. Even if the local whether has experienced a temperature increase in recent years, it is still possible that the whether is not warm enough to melt ice between islands. In either of these two situations, the arguer's claim will fail to be truth. For short, the arguer unreasonably linked the global trends to the regional phenomenon.

In all, the arguer's claim is totally unconvincing since the arguer fails to prove the causal relationship between hunter's report and the real decreased number of arctic deer, the effect of deer's possible migration pattern change to their living, and unreasonably assuming the melt of sea ice. To make the conclusion really trusting, the arguer should at least provide the proofs to the above fallacies.