Argument137 [OB小组]_第12次作业_Mason River游乐

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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: 457         TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2007-7-24

In this argument, the author concludes that the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improving the publicly owned lands along the Mason River since the recreational use of the river is likely to increase. To support this conclusion, the author cites a survey in which the region's residents all rank water sports as a favorite form recreation. The author also notes that the agency responsible for the rivers has announced plans to clean up Mason River. However, this argument suffers from several flaws and is therefore unconvincing as it stands.

First of all, there is a problem with the statistical reliability of the survey cited by the author. The author fails to provide information about the respondents of the survey and it is entirely possible that the number of the respondents is very small and they cannot be representative of the overall population in the region. Or perhaps the respondents of the survey are all water sports lovers and thus the result of the survey is no significant sense. Lacking information about the randomness and size of the sample, the survey might not statistically reliable and the author cannot make a convincing conclusion based on this survey.

Secondly, the author unfairly assumes that residents avoid the river is due to the quality of the water. The author overlooks other factor that can also lead to the resident avoiding the river. Perhaps the residents are likely to do water sports in another river nearby. Or perhaps there are some dangerous fish in the river and they may hurt people. Another possibility is that there are quite a great many ships on the river and it's dangerous for residents to do water sports there. Without ruling out these and other explanations for the residents avoiding the river, the author cannot justify this assumption and make a persuasive conclusion.

Thirdly, the fact that the agency responsible for rivers in the region has announced plans to clean up Mason River does not necessarily indicate that the recreational use of Mason River is likely to increase. It is possible that the plan might be stopped while implementing due to lacking money. Or perhaps the plans are not feasible. It is also possible that the plans are not about to be implemented. Without considering these and other possibilities, the author cannot make me convinced.

In sum, the argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster this conclusion, the author must provide clear evidence that the residents are surely fond of the water sports and that they avoid Mason River due to the quality of the river. To better assess the conclusion, more information about the residents and more detail about the plans to clean up the river are needed.