argument47【自由女神小组第十三次作业】

monkeydluffyUID: 2277631

TOPIC: ARGUMENT47 - Scientists studying historical weather patterns have discovered that in the mid-sixth century, Earth

suddenly became significantly cooler. Although few historical records survive from that time, some accounts found both in

Asia and Europe mention a dimming of the sun and extremely cold temperatures. Either a huge volcanic eruption or a large

meteorite colliding with Earth could have created a large dust cloud throughout Earth's atmosphere that would have been

capable of blocking enough sunlight to lower global temperatures significantly. A large meteorite collision, however, would

probably create a sudden bright flash of light, and no extant historical records of the time mention such a flash. Some

surviving Asian historical records of the time, however, mention a loud boom that would be consistent with a volcanic

eruption. Therefore, the cooling was probably caused by a volcanic eruption.
WORDS: 331          TIME: 29:48          DATE: 2007-2-11

The arguer draws the conclusion that a volcanic eruption that leads to the cold temperatures in the mid-sixth century on the

earth.To support his conclusion,he presents the assumption that there is evidence about the occurance of the volcanic

eruption at that time while the one about the meteorite collison,another factor that will cause the cooling is

unavailable.The arguer commits certain fallacies which make his conclusin unconvincing.

For one thing,the evidence lends insufficient credibilities to the assumption about the appearance of the volcanic

eruption.There is only a loud loom in the records while this single evidence can not ensure the eruption.We can view this

problem into two parts.First,there can be many other events lead to this boom such while the people who has  taken the record

did not make sense of.Second,even  this boom is resulted from the eruption of volcany, there is no guarantee that this kind

of eruption is huge enough to cause the decrease of the tempertature at that time.

For another thing,the arguer draws a hasty gerneralization simply on the basis of the fact that there is no extant historical

records of the time mention such a flash.The fact we should attach our attention to is the records involved in the event  in

merely from the Asian people and thus we know nothing about the records from the other continents aroud the world and what

else if there is evidence existing in their records?Let alone the means of recording is far from developed,we can imagine

that maybe at that time there were people who witnessed the meteorite collision but they have no way to keep it down and thus

we can not find any evidence from the Asian records.

To sum up, the conclusion about the main reason that leads to the cooling of the earth is unconvincing.To make it more

reasonable, the arguer should present more evidence about the occurence of the volcanic eruption and should rule out other

possibilities to ensure the absence of the meteorite collision.