Argument137 【Persistence 小组】第16次作业

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137The following appeared in an editorial in the Mason City newspaper.

"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as a favorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because they think that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. Therefore, recreational use of the river is likely to increase, so the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River."

In this editorial, the author cites the evidence that there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the nearby Mason River, based on which he/she assumes that Mason city residents seldom use the river for any kind of recreational activity because of the unclean water. Another piece of evidence presented to support the argument is that the agency which is responsible for rivers in Mason City has declared plans to clean up Manson River. In addition, the author takes it for granted that recreational use of the river will increase due to the measures taken by the government concerned and surveys showing that the region’s residents rank water sports as a favorite form of recreational activity. Hence the arguer draws the conclusion that Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improving the publicly owned lands along the Manson River. This argument is problematic for several reasons.

In the first place, a threshold problem with this argument involves the statistical reliability of the surveys which rank water sports as a favorite form of recreation. The editorial provides no information about how the surveys were conducted. Without knowing whether the sample of the surveys was representative of the general population in Mason City, it is impossible to confidently apply the results to that population. Moreover, we are not informed about the size of the sample in the surveys; the smaller the sample, the less reliable the surveys’ conclusion, which is an evidence to support the author’s assumption that recreational use of the river is likely to increase.

In the second place, this argument is weakened by the fact that the author does not take in account other reasons why the region’s residents rarely use the Mason River for recreational activities. It is entirely possible that it is the harsh weather conditions that keep the residents away from the river rather than the quality of the water. It may also be the case that the residents’ incomes lower due to the economic crisis and therefore they now lead a tough living and can spare little money for the recreational activities. Although the author mentions the complaints about the quality of the water in the river, he/she provides no evidence that the people complaining are sufficient in size and representative of the residents overall. In that case, if the Mason River were cleaned up, the recreational use of the river would not necessarily increase.

In the third place, even if one accepts the assumption that residents are avoiding the river because they hold that the water in the river is not clean enough, the argument remains questionable. The author assumes that the quality of the water will by all means be improved since the agency in charge of rivers has announced plans to clean up the river, however, he/she fails to consider the possibility that the agency is not responsible enough and, after this announcement of the plan, leaders of the agency would not give their attention to the river any more, deluding the public that some actions were being taken. Another possibility the author overlooks is that it may take a long time for the agency, if responsible, to clean up Mason River because it is a difficult project and a large amount of residents may leave this city for some reason or other before the work has been done. Consequently, the author’s conclusion based on this declaration is unwarranted.

In the fourth place, it is unfair to conclude that the budget for improvements to the public lands along the river should be increased. Perhaps the increase of the recreational use of the river will not require more improved public lands because water sports such as swimming, fishing and boating are played in the river rather than the land. Without offering more evidence to support the claim, the author cannot persuade me that the council should raise the budget for developing the publicly owned lands.

In the final analysis, this argument is not well reasoned as it stands. To make it logically acceptable, the arguer would have to demonstrate that the surveys are statistically reliable and that residents stay away from the river for the only one reason that the water quality is bad. Additionally, the arguer should provide evidence that the agency will take measures soon and that the water will be cleaned up in the near future.