Arguement77 [0710G 戴三个表冲刺小组] 070822

oscar1125UID: 2267090

TOPIC: ARGUMENT77 - The cities of East Sacunda and West Sacunda are in an earthquake-prone area. Since 1985 both cities have had stringent building codes requiring all new buildings to have specific features designed to prevent damage in an earthquake. Buildings built before 1985 are exempt from the codes, but many building owners have modified their buildings to make them conform to the 1985 codes. Last year a major earthquake hit the area, and many people lost their homes. The number of people who were left homeless was much higher in East Sacunda than in West Sacunda, however, so we can conclude that building owners in East Sacunda were less likely to modify their buildings so as to bring them up to the 1985 code standards.
WORDS: 495          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2007-8-22 4:08:46


In the passage above,the arguer convinced himself into the conclusion that building owners in East Sacunda were less likely to modify their buildings so as to bring them up to the 1985 code standards ,compared to owners in West Sacunda ,which he drawn from the fact that ,in an major earthquake last year ,the number of people who were left homeless was much higher in East than West. However, it doesn't convince me ,with him neglecting the factors such as different portion of buildings built before 1985, different power released in the earthquake in different cities, etc. , which will possibly lead us to the conclusion that ,even every building owners in East Sacunda modified all of their buildings to standard 1985, the number in East Sacunda will still triumph the West.
For the first part, since the damage caused by an earthquake related to the location and the energy of the disaster itself, the calculation of the loss of the two cities should cousider that factor, especially when they were compared with each other based on the loss. That means, the number of the homeless people may have a good chance be largely affected by the details of the earthquake. If the centre of the disaster located right in the downtown of the East Sacunda, it should be the earthquake, not the "lazy" citizen in East Sacunda, that be responsible for the greater loss of the East Sacunda than the West.
For the second part, the building status in both cities are not mentioned in the passage, which made the two cities a terrible example of analysis. The arguer seems to draw the conclusion based on the assumption that the two cities have the similar structure of the age of their buildings. But there's still an option, probably a better one, that the two cities have a different structure. The greater number of homeless people could just bring us to the situation that most buildings in East Sacunda could date back to 1984 or earlier, while the West Sacunda have most of itself built after the 1985 code standard was annouced. If so, even none of the old buildings in West Sacunda was modified beforehand, the disaster could still result the number difference.
Last but not least, who says that the 1985 code standard could protect the building from damaged by the earthquake? The earthquake could just be hard enough to triumph the standard, while the reason that the number of people who were left homeless was much higher in East Sacunda than in West  Sacunda could just be the better building quality in the West, even if the East have modified all of their old buildings.
To sum up, the author have commited a false analogy in the passage, which means that the condition of the two cities are not proved similar ,even not analogable. So it may be too hasty to put that conclusion on the paper before more investigation was executed.