argument20 by ilovegouding 8.4 第十六次

ilovegoudingUID: 2503269

题目：ARGUMENT 20 - The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.

"The population of Balmer Island increases to 100,000 duing the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island should limit the number of mopeds rented by each of the island's six moped and bicycle rental companies from 50 per day to 30 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council is sure to attain the 50 percent reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year in the neighboring island of Torseau, when Torseau's town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals."
字数：471          用时：0:32:00          日期：2008-8-4

Based on in increased population, a fear of more accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, and the successful experience of reducing accidents in the neighboring island of Torseau(T), the arguer advocates that Balmer Island(B) should implement similar limitations on moped rentals. While this argument seems logical at first glance, it suffers from a series of unsubstantiated assumptions and a false analogy which render it wholly untenable as it stands.

A threshold problem involved in this argument is that the author unfairly assumes that an increase in the population of B will engender a potentially high incidence of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians. Yet no evidence is provided by the author to prove this crucial assumption. An increase of 100,000, though it seems large, is not a necessary significant increase for B. It is entirely possible that B has a large population of 10,000,000, for example, which renders the increase a relatively tiny number that would probably have not any influence on the traffic of the island. If it is the case, the worry about accidents would be entirely unfounded.

Furthermore, implicit in this the argument is the assumption that rental mopeds would be the decisive cause of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, which is unwarranted. For instance, such accidents may usually spring from the bad road conditions, such as uneven road surfaces, lack of traffic lights or due control, etc. Or people's indifferent attitudes towards traffic rules and regulations may be the main reason accounting for such accidents. It is equally possible that most people do not travel by rented mopeds but by mopeds of their own. Any of these scenarios, if true, would serve to seriously undermine the arguer's assumption, thereby rendering the suggested limitation totally useless.

Yet another problem with the argument lies in the false analogy between T and B. First, it is true that T has reduced such accidents significantly when it enforced similar limits. However, this does not necessarily guarantee a causal relationship between implementation of limits and reduction of accidents. It is highly possible that T has adopted other and possibly more decisive measures to ensure a decrease in accident incidence. Secondly, even assuming it is the limits that brought about T's success in providing a safe traffic environment for its residents, it does not follow that similar measures can also be suitable for B, which might be a wholly different place in many respects. For instance, the population, traffic conditions, number of bicycles and the geographical terrain of B may vastly differ from those of T. As a result, similar limits may have a different or even opposite effect on the number of accidents.

In the final analysis, the evidence provided by the arguer accomplishes little to bolster his or her conclusion. It would be helpful to provide more information concerning the population of B, its main reason for accidents, and whether it bears enough similarities with T to follow T's methods.