Argument131[jet小组]第十次作业

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ARGUMENT131 - 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."

In this argument, the author contributes the reason why Tria water's fisf populations are declining to the excessive fishing. To support his reasoning, the author cites an example of Omni water which only abandon dumping, offshore oil drilling, and fishing within 10 miles of Omni compared to Tira's 20 miles and therefore no significant decline in its fish populations. As a result, the author comes to a conclusion that we should follow Omni's example. However, the author commits to several fallacies as follows:

First of all, the author seems to ignore the details of the environment of Tira's water to come to his hasty generalization. The author does not provide enough evidence to convince me on the fishes in Tria's water are not the victims of pollution caused by dumping, offshore oil drilling. In the regulations of Tira's water, we can clearly find that the forbidden area is 20 miles away from Tira. May be dumping and offshore oil drilling occur frequently in Tira's water and these behaviors result the heavy environmental broken there, therefore the local government find it is necessary for them to pass this regulation. If it is so, the pollution Tira's water suffers is much worse than the author's imagine. Besides, many other reasons such as the increasing enemies of fishes and the changing of ocean current may also the arch-criminals which may also response for the decrease of the fish in Tira's water.

Moreover, the decline of fishes in both Tria’s water and Omni's water is too vague for us to agree with the author. One question puzzles us is that how is the decline was measured. If the author only pay attention the absolute decrease of the fishes, it is possible that the quantity and sorts of fish in Tria’s water are much better than those in Omni's water; an area can hardly find any fishes. As it stands, though the subsidence of the former is larger than the latter, consider the percentage it takes, both two are at the same level.

Also, the author may make a false analogy between Tria's water and Omni's water. Tough there are many similarities between them; we cannot believe the arguer's analogy before further comparison of them. First, are the environments of the two alike? It is possible that Omni's water is contaminated seriously while Tria’s water is still clean. Second, are there some fish outside add to the two areas? For example, Tria's water is an isolate water ?no fish would like to swim there while Omni's water also appeal many fishes immigrate there.

Overall, the author fails to consider several possibilities: the environment of Tira's water, the material number of the decline and the similarity of the two water areas. Without ruling out these possible alternatives, the author’s assertion is untenable.

[ 本帖最后由 cascade 于 2008-2-22 21:25 编辑 ]