0910AW argument120 by 玲珑四犯(欢迎大家狂批

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下周一就要考了，逻辑方面怎样才能有起色呢，怎么办ma 555555
131. The following appeared in an environmental newsletter published in Tria
Island.
"The marine sanctuary on Tria Island was established to protect certain
marine mammals. Its regulations ban dumping and offshore oil drilling
within 20 miles of Tria, but fishing is not banned. Currently many fish
populations in Tria's waters are declining, a situation blamed on
pollution. In contrast, the marine sanctuary on Omni Island has regulations
that ban dumping, offshore oil drilling, and fishing within 10 miles of
Omni and Omni reports no significant decline in its fish populations.
Clearly, the decline in fish populations in Tria's waters is the result of
overfishing, not pollution. Therefore, the best way to restore Tria's fish
populations and to protect all of Tria's marine wildlife is to abandon our
regulations and adopt those of Omni."

Based on the situations of fishing decline and the differences of sanctuary bans of tria island and onmi island, speculating that the reduce of fish population in tria island is caused by over-fishing rather not the pollution, synthesizing the two hypothesizes, the author assumes that adopting omni’s regulations in tria is a good way to protect fish population there. However, this scant evidence and unproven assumptions make the logical reference seem extremely suspicious. The close scrutiny which follows in my essay will reveal how unconvincing it is.

First of all, the author has engaged in “after this, therefore because of this reasoning”. Ie. The author is assuming that correlation equals causation. The only link given between sanctuary regulations and the decline of fish populations is that the former preceded the later. No additional evidence linking the two events is offered in the recommendation, thus leaving open the possibility that the two events are not causally related but merely correlated. There may be some other reason leading to this situation. For example, some species of fish have special habitual behavior of mating and spawning, like moving to another island or shallow water in droves. Special way of mating may make the population of fishing in tria island seems declined significantly in a short time. This is turn leaves open the possibility that factors other than the one that regulations caused over-fishing are responsible for the decline of the fish population in tria island.

Secondly, the speaker turns on the contrast between two islands’ population of fish. However, the speaker provides no evidence to support the result that there is no significant decline in the fish population in omni island. The fact that no report about a large number of decline demonstrates nothing about the real situation of fish population there. It is possible that the report in omni island or the regular observation is not precise which lead to the final illusion of fish population. Lacking more complete information about omni island, we cannot assumes anything about population of fish there only appealing to ignorance.

Thirdly, the editor assumes that over-fishing and pollution are mutually exclusive alternatives. Nonetheless, the he or she provides no reasoning for imposing an either-or choice. Considering bother two factors might be more authentic, in that fishing activities bring solid wastes which produced by fishing population. This is also a part of pollutions but caused by fishing, thus both of the two factors might be “fish killer”. Moreover, the editor maybe wrong in the assumption that over-fishing and pollution are the only possible causes for the decline, then there may be other possible causes of this. For example, unmoral shoals’ migrating which cause by the interactions between conditions of weather and tide can change fish population’s a lot. Without evidence that we can rule out such possibilities, the author cannot justify this recommendation.

Finally, in concluding that the decline is caused by over-fishing, the speaker assumes that banning fishing as omni sanctuary are both necessary and sufficient for this purpose. Yet, the author has not provided any evidence to substantiate either assumption. For instance, charging fishing activities much more than before is a way to attain two objectives----protecting fish population and keeping marine economy running. Lacking evidence to rule out such examples mentioned above, it is just as likely that other protecting measure would be equally or even effective.

Even if forbidding fishing is necessary to fish population, it is entirely possible that regulation of banning would not sufficient to ensure similar success elsewhere---- due to the sorts of factor that might contributed to protecting fish in omni island but would not come into play in tria island. If so, then speaker’s recommendation cannot be taken seriously.

In summary, the editor has not convinced me of his or her basis that fish decline in tria island is caused by overfishing and tria should copy the same regulation of banning fish of omni. To bolster this recommendation, the author should inform us more about the conditions of two island and present details of sanctuary regulations.

Words:678

2009-6-29 21:46
By linny