argument99 Gter四月''无名''小组第49次作业-Expire7

expire7UID: 2160574

TOPIC：ARGUMENT 99 - The following appeared in a memo from the economic minister of the small country Paucia.

"Using a newly developed variety of seed, farmers in our neighboring country Abundia produced 80 percent more rice last year than in any previous year. To increase the income of farmers in our own country, we should encourage them to cultivate this new variety of rice rather than some of their traditional crops. Such high yields of rice will also improve our country's balance of trade by enabling us to begin exporting it."
WORDS：480          TIME：上午 12:23:11          DATE：2006-3-25

In this argument, the author advocates that Paucia should encourage farmers to use new seed, which will improve country's balance of trade. To justify this claim, the author cites evidence showing that neighboring country Abundia produced 80% more rice last year than before because they used new seed. Meanwhile, the author assumes that his country will get the same increase in rice when adoping the new seed. This argument suffers from a series of logical flaws, however, which renders it wholly unpersuasive as it stands.

First and foremost, the mere fact that Abundia produced 80 percent more rice last year than in any previous year can not sufficiently substantiate the effect of the new seed. Perhaps Abundia adopt other measures and policies to ensure the amount of rice improving, when they introduce the new seed to farmers. If so, the efficiency of seed is dubious. Or perhaps the output of rice in Abundia always keeps in a low level, which is far worse than Paucia. In this case, the new seed may not effective as well as the using seed in Paucia now. Without ruling out those possibilities, we can not think that the conclusion of the author is sound and valid.

In addition, even assuming that the new seed is the major reason of the increase in Abundia, the author can not necessarily prove out that his conclusion is convincing only depending on the unwarranted analogy between two countries. Due to lacking enough information about two countries, we can assume that the geographical terrain and climates are significantly different in them. Although new seed can greatly improve the amount of rice in Paucia, it may be not proper in Paucia, even discontent with consumers. Since the author omits the evidence to prove out that new seed is appropriate in his country, the conclusion is ill-convincing.

Last but not least, the author commits a fallacy of hasty generalization that if the amount of rice improves like Abundia, Paucia would improve its country's balance of trade. Common sense tells that a country's balance stems from the international and domestic market and other factors. It is possible that the international market  is dramatically changing  in next year. It is also likely that due to flood the rice can not enough to provide demositc demand.  Any of those scenarios, if true, will serve to undermine the author recommendation rather than support it.

To sum up, the argument lacks credibility because the cited evidence in this analysis can not lend significant support to what the author maintains. To make it logically acceptable, the author would have to demonstrate the concrete evidence that the new seed indeed essentially influenced the rice in Abundia, and it will be effective and bring the same consequence in Paucia. Furthermore, the author must provide evidence to testify that the increase of rice will lead to his country's balance of trade.