Argument15 Fantasy互改群

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15.The following appeared in a newsletter offering advice to investors.

"Over 80 percent of the respondents to a recent survey indicated a desire to reduce their intake of foods containing fats and cholesterol, and today low-fat products abound in many food stores. Since many of the food products currently marketed by Old Dairy Industries are high in fat and cholesterol, the company's sales are likely to diminish greatly and their profits will no doubt decrease. We therefore advise Old Dairy stockholders to sell their shares and other investors not to purchase stock in this company."

最近一次调查中超过80％的回应者表达了他们想减少含脂肪和胆固醇的食品的愿望，现在很多食品商店都提供丰富的低脂肪食品。由于Old Dairy Industries当前生产的很多产品都有很高的脂肪和胆固醇含量，该公司的销量有可能严重下降，其盈利无疑会减少。因而我们建议Old Dairy的股票持有者抛出他们所持的股份，其他投资者也不应购买该公司的股份。

In this argument, the arguer advises Old Dairy stockholders to sell their shares and other investors not to purchase stock in this company. To support this conclusion, the arguer cited a recent survey to which over 80 percent of the respondent indicated a desire to reduce their intake of foods containing fats and cholesterol. Moreover, the arguer points out that many of the food products currently marketed by Old Dairy are high in fat and cholesterol. However, a careful scrutiny of this argument would reveal that the argument is unpersuasive for a few critical fallacies as follows.

In the first place, the validity of the survey is doubtful. Although there are over 80 percent of the respondents who indicated their desire to reduce foods containing fats and cholesterol, and the percentage seems to make the arguer's conclusion more reliable, the survey is still unconvincing, lacking of the numbers of all the people who were surveyed and the number of the respondents. For example, if there are 100 people in all who were surveyed, but only 5 people responded, thus there are only 4 people indicated the desire above. Maybe the 4 people were coincidently from a same class of weight training, the reduction of fats and cholesterol is already necessary to them so of course they indicated the same desire. Moreover, the respondents merely represented their though, it is unknown that they would truly make the purchasing decision just as what they represented. Therefore, the survey that the arguer cited fails to lend support to the arguer's conclusion, for its uncertainty.

In the Second place, the merely information that today low-fat products abound in many food stores is insufficient evidence to conclude the decrease of Old Dairy's sales. From the abundance of food stores we could not acquire the conclusion that the demand of foods containing fats and cholesterol will diminish. There is no necessary causal relationship between them. Maybe just because people consume too many foods containing fating and cholesterol and that cause menace to their health, to restrict their assimilation of fats and cholesterol, these people have to take a certain amount of low-fat foods instead of the foods containing fat and cholesterol, they don't really reject such foods. Thus, the abundance of low-fat products does not indicate a unpopularity of foods containing fats and cholesterol.

Further more, even if all the evidences provided by the arguer are true and sufficient to prove that people prefers low-fat foods to foods containing fats and cholesterol, and that will diminish greatly the Old Dairy's sales, it does not necessarily lead to the decrease of the company's profits. Profits depend on both the income and the cost. On the one hand, although the amount of the sold products drops, the company may increase the unit price for compensation so that the gross income would not decrease too much. On the other hand, the company may adopt capable approach to cut down the product cost, such as reducing the number of employees. So the arguer should not confidently conclude that the company's profits will no doubt decrease.

In sum, the arguer fails to provide enough or reliable evidences to convince that people tends to prefer low-fat foods to foods containing fats and cholesterol, and the trend will greatly determine the Old Dairy's profit. To justify his recommendation, the arguer would be better off to carry out a thorough study to confirm whether the company's foods are unpopular with people, and the company is incompetent to deal with the situation. Otherwise the conclusion is logically unacceptable.

[ Last edited by staralways on 2005-8-23 at 00:01 ]