Argument112 [Victors小组]第十次作文

hlzhang431UID: 2297648

ARGUMENT112- The following proposal was raised at a meeting of the Franklin City Council.

"Franklin Airport, which is on a bay, is notoriousfor flight delays. The airport management wants to build new runways toincrease capacity but can only do so by filling in 900 acres of the bay. TheBay Coalition organization objects that filling in the bay will disrupt tidalpatterns and harm wildlife. But the airport says that if it is permitted tobuild its new runways, it will fund the restoration of 1,000 acres of wetlandsin areas of the bay that have previously been damaged by industrialization.This plan should be adopted, for it is necessary to reduce the flight delays,and the wetlands restoration part of the plan ensures that the bay'senvironment will actually be helped rather than hurt."

Withoutfully consideration, the author of this proposal recommends that the FranklinCity Council (FCC) should adopt the plan of Franklin Airport (FA) to build newrunways for the simple reason that it will not only reduce the flight delaysbut also will improve the bay's environment. Close scrutiny of his or herinference reveals that it suffers from many fallacies and thus is unconvincing.

Tobegin with, the threshold problem with this proposal is that the causal relationshipthat the author establishes between the flight delays in FA and its capacityseems dubious. Without mentioning several specific statistics regarding theaverage flights per day and the capacity areas, the author cannot hastilyjustify that this causality. Besides, there is a myriad of possibility thatcould also cause the flight delays. Perhaps due to its bad weather conditions,they have no choice to do but to delay their flight for the purpose of safety.In this case, even if more runways have been built, it might still be difficultto reduce its flight delays.

Secondly,another flaw that weakens the argument is that the author might overlook thepossibility that the bay’s environmental condition might actually bedeteriorated rather than enhanced. As what is said in this proposal, building morenew runways will disrupt tidal patterns and harm wildlife, which might greatlythreaten the number of species in the bay for the simple reason that the existenceof wildlife is strongly dependent on each other. Consequently, compared withthe restoration of wetland in areas of the bay that has been previously damagedby industrialization, this disruption might be much worse.

Finally,other than building more runways, there might be several other means that couldalso effectively reduce the flight delays. For instance, FA could rescheduleits flights and, by decreasing the number of flights which are seldomfull-occupied or switching some of their flights to nearest airports.Consequently, due to reduced flight rates there, it is entirely probable thatflight delays might be significantly reduced.

Ina word, the author's inference lacks of credibility as it stands. Regardless ofwho the author is, he or she has overlooked or chosen to ignore many aspects ofhis or conclusion. To further strengthen it, more evidence should be providedto eliminate the above-mentioned possibilities.


(2007-6-1311:28:09)

[ 本帖最后由 hlzhang431 于 2007-6-16 19:28 编辑 ]