Argument137 [天道酬勤小组]

surreal_stevenUID: 2239190

TOPIC: ARGUMENT137 - The 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."
WORDS: 479          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2007-7-15 11:21:57

This seemingly reasonable argument draws the conclusion that the Mason City council should increase the budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River because the river will be clean enough to attract people for recreational use. However, a careful analysis discloses that it is flawed in several aspects.

To begin with, the survey on which the argument relies in open to doubt. The author provides no evidence that it is statistically reliable. First, the number of the participants in the survey is unknown. Maybe there are only 2 or 3 people in the sample, which is too small to be sufficient. Or it is entirely possible that all the respondents of the survey are big fans of such water sports as swimming, etc, even if it is a large sample. Unless the sample is representative of the overall residents with different gender, age, preference on sports and some other related background conditions, the author cannot assert that such survey can reflect the general attitude of the citizens in Mason City as a whole, which makes the conclusion groundless.

Even if it is true that all the citizens in Mason City are crazy about water sports, the conclusion of the argument relies on an unwarranted assumption that the poor quality of the water in the river is the only reason that keeps people away from it. Unfortunately, it may not be the case. The author fails to examine some other alternative explanation to it. For example, maybe the river is too deep and thus it is very dangerous to swim in it especially for children. Or perhaps there is almost no fish in the river for fishing. No one would like to boat in it just because of the too much sharp curves and narrow width. Without considering and ruling out such possibilities, it is unconvincing that the recreational use of the river is likely to increase as long as the river is cleaned up, let alone whether the river can be cleaned up to meet the demands of the citizens remains in the air.

In addition, it is still questionable whether it is essential to increase the budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands. If the water in the river will be clean enough to attract people back and the Mason River is a perfect place to have some water sports, will it be more feasible and profitable for the local government to buy some boats or to build several convenient facilities for swimming? Maybe the lands along the river are good enough and no more money is needed. If so, the modification of the conclusion is necessary.

In sum, as it lacks sufficient evidence and logical scrutiny, the conclusion reached in the argument is invalid and misleading. By taking all the factors I mentioned above into account could this editorial be more persuasive.

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