"为我所用"小组第十五次作业argument45

rienziUID: 2402391

TOPIC: ARGUMENT45 - The following appeared as an editorial in a wildlife journal.
"Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic region. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of a year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed, and cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according to reports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since these reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt, we can conclude that the decline in arctic deer populations is the result of deer being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea."

WORDS: 383          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-4-9 17:53:36



    The arguer describes a kind of deer that lives in arctic for us. He presents us the food searching habit of this kind of arctic deer which live in the arctic part of Canada. By the result of some reports, the arguer concludes that the population of arctic deer which have been described by him above is reducing and it phenomenon is the result of global warming. But through careful scrutiny, it is not difficult to pick out some fatal fallacies in the arguer's discussion.
    Firstly, the arguer does not tell us some vital details of the food searching habit of Arctic deer. He describes that those deer's habitat limited to the areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed, but he also tells us that they must travel the ice cover to reach other islands. This is a paradox. If the plants which can feed the deer can survive in cold weather which can freeze the sea, why they have to travel those ice covers to search food. With
    Secondly, the arguer does not convince us that the population of arctic deer is declining. By his passage, we can see that this conclusion is from the result of some reports which is given by local hunters. Without the detail of these reports, like a comparison of the population of arctic deer of a former year to this year or something, we can not make clear that whether the reduction is a fact. Even the reports from local hunters is counterfeited. In this case, the decline of population of arctic deer is not convincing.
    Thirdly, the arguer fails to construct a cause-and-effect relationship between the decline of the population of the arctic deer and global warming. He does not concern any other factor which can influence the population of arctic deer and can cause the reduction. Extreme hunting of those deer is one of those factors. And, as we do not know the specific condition of the melting of sea ice there, we can not make the conclusion that it influence the traveling of arctic deer and cause the population of those animals to reduce.
    Given the discussion above, the arguer's conclusion is unreasonable. More surveys or investigations should be done to support his conclusion or make him discard it.


[ 本帖最后由 rienzi 于 2008-4-10 12:00 编辑 ]