argument170 [Jet小组]第十三次作业

x6xUID: 2180130

TOPIC: ARGUMENT170 - For the past five years, consumers in California have been willing to pay twice as much for oysters from the northeastern Atlantic Coast as for Gulf Coast oysters. This trend began shortly after harmful bacteria were found in a few raw Gulf Coast oysters. But scientists have now devised a process for killing the bacteria. Once consumers are made aware of the increased safety of Gulf Coast oysters, they are likely to be willing to pay as much for Gulf Coast as for northeastern Atlantic Coast oysters, and greater profits for Gulf Coast oyster producers will follow.

提纲：
错误因果：科学家设计了方案不一定使得安全增加
证据缺失：除了安全问题，Gulf Coast 卖得贵可能还有其它原因
错误类比 ：Gulf Coast 与northeastern Atlantic Coast的情况不同
WORDS: 673          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-2-29 23:08:07

The author in the origin text asserts that oysters in Gulf Coast(GC for short) are likely to be sold to customers with the same price of those in northeastern Atlantic Coast(NAC for short) once customers are made aware of the increased safety of GC oysters. At first glance, the opinion seems to be persuasive and reasoning. However, further reflections tell me that I cannot agree with it for the following reasons.

To begin with, that scientists have devised a process for killing the bacteria cannot assure that the safely of GC oysters will absolutely increase. The confidences of scientists are usually formed through experiments and researches in laboratories. In fact, a huge gap between laboratories and realities should never be neglected. Scientists are just needed to consider the effects of certain medicines or other materials, without caring whether the processes they designed will indeed be put into actions, which is the responsibility of government. As policy makers, government officials have to supervise the whole process of implements. Since their behaviours are not available, we cannot affirmatively believe that the safety of GC oysters will increase.

In addition, except of low safety, there may exist some other factors which frustrates consumers in GC to buy oysters. Although the trend of half low acceptable prices in GC began shortly after the bacteria incident, some hidden reasons may be ignored. Let us suppose that sellers in NAC improve their packings of products at the same time with the disaster in GC. Judging with theories of marketing, we would easily understand why customers value the packings of goods, no matter they are clothes, bicycles, books or even foods. To illustrate, I prefer to take the legends of Snickers as an example, which is a kind of chocolate products produced by Mars. Mars first put it on sale as early as 1999. However, not until recent year could we hear about that name and choose to buy them in supermarkets. Actually, in the market of candy, and especially chocolate, competitions are as fierce as sports games in olympiads. No power of marketing and no trait of taste do Snickers chocolate has, and then, how can it beat so many strong antagonists？At last, Mars succeeded in bidding as one of the sponsors of 2004 Olympics in Athen, Greek and got admission from IOC to make chocalates with the figure and design of golden medal of Athen Olympics. Luckily but consequentially, candy customers around the world not only accept that new kind of chocolate as a choice but also gradually feel fond of them. Similarly, oysters in NAC may get a new packing at the same time, which may just break the harmonious sale complexion to become the key factor determining the sale condition of oysters in both GC and NAC.

What's more, the author has made false analogy. The conditions in GC and NAC is possible to be totally different. Even if the factor affecting sale condition in GC is just safety and the safety increases just as scientists has designed, we still dare not to conclude that the acceptable prices of the two will be the same. Price, a classical topic which has been discussed and explained thousands of times in the economics, was affected by many factors, but generally the relationship between demands and supplys. regrettablely, we are not aware of the relationships in either GC or NAC. It is possible that demands exceed supplys greatly in NAC; whereas, the condition in GC is just the opposite. Then, the phenomenons occurred in GC recently will not to difficult to explained and the act of increasing safely will have little effect in improving the vendition.

In sum, the claim of author is not convincing as it stands. To make it logically acceptable, the author would have to prove that the safely of GC oysters will absolutely increase. Additionally, the author must eliminate other factors preventing consumers in GC to buy oysters. Only with more convincing evidence could this argument become more than just an emotional appeal.