Argumen137 3.4 小鸡要快跑哈

longxuUID: 2290268

TOPIC: ARGUMENT137 - The following appearedin an editorial in the Mason Citynewspaper.

"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason Riverfor any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region'sresidents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as afavorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the qualityof the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because theythink that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: theagency 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 forimprovements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River."
WORDS: 398          TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2007-3-4

The argument concludes that it is likelythat the recreation use of the riverof Mason City(MC) will increase andthe MC council will need an increase of the budget to improve the lands alongthe Mason River. To support the conclusion, thearguer provides the evidence about a survey according to recreation and theseldom use of the Masion River for recreation.However, the assumption about the phenomenon and the survey upon which theargument relies is dubious and unconvincing in some critical aspects.

First of all, the arguer unfairly assumesthat the phenomenon that MC residents seldom use the river because the badquality of the water. Yet, the arguer fails to present any evidence to justifythis assumption. It is entirely possible that the river is far from the centerof the city and it is not convenient forresidents to arrive there. It is also possible that due to the condition of riverwhich is not proper for swimming and other recreation, there are few people togo there. Therefore, if the arguer cannot demonstrate more information aboutthe Masion River, we cannot accept the conclusionthat the river will be a favorite place for people to have fun.

Next point, the argument fails to take intoaccount the possibilities about the survey of the people who take in the surveyand have a favorite of water sports. Perhaps,the people in the survey like to take recreation activities, such as swimming,fishing and boating, not in the river but in some other places. Or perhaps, thepeople in the survey take up only a small percentage of the whole residents,thus the results cannot be informative. Thus, unless the arguer cannot rule outthe possibilities, we cannot the assumption that the number of people who go tothe river for recreational activities will increase.

Last but not least, the assumption aboutthe complaints seems logical but still cannot be interpreted. It is very likelythat the complaints about the river are notabout the use of recreation but other use of the river. They, as the case maybe, need the water of river to produce or clean. Therefore, even if thecondition of the water in Masion River is well improved,there is no increase of the people who go to the river for recreation, as thearguer assumes.

To sum up, the argument is indeed logicalunsound with the existing evidence and the survey. To better assess it, I needto know: (1) what is the size and the makeup of the survey, and whether theresult can represent the all attitudes of adiverse cross section of the population in MC;(2) whether the use of recreationis the reason the complaints come from; (3) whether the condition of the riverin MC is adapt for residents to go forrecreational activities, if any.