argument045【0906G Fight 3月中~4月初队】第二周第四次作业 by Loutlook

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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."


The arguer concludes 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. The conclusion relies on the reports from local hunters and recent global warming trends. The pity is the argument is well-presented but not well-reasoned. I would point out several crucial mistakes to support my view.

For the first place, the reality of the reports from local hunter should be ensured again. It is entirely possible that the hunters cannot see the whole picture of the populations of the deer, so maybe there are less deer within the area which the hunters often live, but the total number is increasing. And we cannot exclude the possibility that the hunters do this on purpose, which means they can get some benefit from telling the lies.

Granted that the reports are real enough to show the case, the argument relies on additional assumption that there is a correlation between the global warming and decline of arctic deer that the former attribute to the latter. Yet, firstly, the deduction amounts to scant evidence that the warm tendency leads to the result that arctic deer cannot immigrant as they used to do. Perhaps, the warming does little to this area, or even does not influence the area yet. That is to say maybe at least the warming weather not yet makes the deer be unable to travel over the ice to other islands. Moreover, the warm air may help the plant grow better which the deer feed on, and then this adds the possibility that there is little relationship between the tendency of warming and the decline of the deer.

Also, the arguer fails to rule out other alternative reasons which may cause the reduction of deer’s number. For example, it is entirely possible that there is some kind of disease spreading around the deer, or it is the hunters themselves who make the deer populations decline by over hunting.bh

In sum, to persuade me 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, the arguer must provide more evidence which prove the credibility of the hunters’ statement and ensure the correlation between the global warming and decline of arctic deer. The arguer should rule out other alternative reasons which could cause the reduction of deer.