Argument185 飞跃dreams第四次作业

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT185 - The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment building to its manager.
"One month ago, all the showerheads on the first five floors of Sunnyside Towers were modified to restrict the water flow to approximately 1/3 of its original force. Although actual readings of water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation, since the corporation must pay for water each month. Except for a few complaints about low water pressure, no problems with showers have been reported since the adjustment. Clearly, restricting water flow throughout all the 20 floors of Sunnyside Towers will increase our profits further."
WORDS: 355          TIME: 50min


In this letter, the owner suggests that the Sunnyside Towers should restrict flow throughout all the 20 floors of the building in order to increase its profit further. At first glance, this suggestion seems tantalizingly convincing. However, further evaluation reveals logical fallacies that weaken the author's argument.

In the first place, the author makes his hasty conclusion without any persuasive evidence. As he confesses in the letter, actual readings of water usage are unavailable both before and after the adjustment. Since the absence of this fundamental statistics, any conclusions' preciseness is quite open to doubt. It is entirely possible that the final readings of water conversely reveal that more water is needed due to the customers' water saving for emergency.

Additionally, a few complaints about low water pressure tell little about the overall attitude of the residents in the first five floors. Because of the report's vagueness, we know nothing about exact number and the percentage of these complaints. It is entirely possible that more than 10 percents of the residents have no easy access to continuous flow. And in such case, the manager would have to pay much more to modify every residents' water instruments according to the water pressure. Moreover, complaints from residents will sometime contribute to the loss of the company's fame, and surely result in the decrease of customers in foreseeable future. And at that time Sunnyside Tower will make arduous efforts to make ends meet, let alone earn further profits.

Finally, even assuming that the author provides further specific evidence about the survey, the author still commits fallacy of false analogy. Situation in the first five floors differs significantly from that of floors above. As physical principles reveal, the higher water flow reaches, the greater water pressure is required thus more complaints about low water pressure will appear. Since there have already existed a few complaints about low water pressure after the adjustment in the first five floors, situation above will be much more serious, even result in shortage of water among whole residents in the building. Without any precise physical calculation, the restriction suggested is inacceptable and even misleading.