argument67[thrive小组]第9次作业(有拍必回：)

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT67 - The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a newspaper serving the villages of
Castorville and Polluxton.
"Both the villages of Castorville and Polluxton have experienced sharp declines in the numbers of residents who
pay property taxes. To save money and improve service, the two villages recently merged their once separate
garbage collection departments into a single department located in Castorville, and the new department has
reported few complaints about its service. Last year the library in Polluxton had 20 percent fewer users than
during the previous year. It follows that we should now further economize and improve service, as we did with
garbage collection, by closing the library in Polluxton and using the library in Castorville to serve both
villages."
WORDS: 380          TIME: 00:29:39          DATE: 2008-2-22 0:44:50
Prior to closing the library in Polluxton and using the library in Castorville to serve both villages, the
evidence presented in the argument requires an in-depth scrutiny, by doing which, I find that the conclusion seems
to have unduly relied on a series of unsubstantiated assumptions and illogical reasoning, and thus draws a
conclusion that is fundamentally flawed.

To begin with, the editor provide insufficient evidence to prove that the merge of the garbage collection
departments of the two villages is successful. It is entirely possible that because one year is too short a time
that the problems with the merge have not appeared and we cannot be about whether there would be lots of serious
problems in the future. It is also possible that many problems have not been reported. Since the author does not
respond to this concern, the conclusion is untenable.

Even if accepting the situation in the garbage collection department is successful, the editor fails to take into
account possible inherent differences between garbage collection department and the library. Perhaps the same
scenario will not work in library mergement due to a myriad of differences. For instance, merging garbage
collection department is more convenient than merging the library because there are far more things needed to be
transferred when merging the library. For that matter, perhaps the successful of the merging garbage department
would not occur in the merging library. Without accounting for these and other possible dissimilarities, the
editor cannot assume that what resulted in merging garbage collection department could bring about the same result
in merging library.

Even assuming that merging library would also be as successful as merging the garbage collection department, the
author's conclusion seems to be hasty. Because when we close the library, we must take into account the factors
such as the using situation of the two libraries and the condition of them, in order to decide which library to be
closed. In this sense, the author commits the fallacy of hasty generalization.

In summary, the argument has several patent flaws which render it logically unpersuasive as it stands. To
strengthen the conclusion, further investigation and analysis are needed. To persuade me that we should close the
library in Polluxton, the author should supply clear evidence about the above-mentioned possibilities.