argument170 51互助组 by ruczephyr

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题目：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.
字数：512          用时：00:29:49          日期：2007-7-10 23:55:46

The passage is presented to claim that consumers will be possibly willing to pay as much for Gulf Coast as for northeastern Atlantic Coast oysters, and Gulf Coast oyster producers will gain much profit. To substantiate the point ,the author provides evidences that scientists have devised a process for killing the bacteria to promote the safety of Gulf Coast oysters once decrease its sales. The argument looks reasonable, however in-depth scrutiny reveals that it still suffers from several fallacies as follows.

First and foremost, whether the real reason for the decline for sales of Gulf Coast oysters is the effect of the bacteria found in a few raw oysters. It is entirely possible that the only a few found bacteria are infected during because of poor equipment of transportation. Whereas most of the Gulf Coast oysters do not contain such kind of bacteria. In fact, other factors rather than bacteria would attribute to the sale decline, such as bad quality of the oyster itself, poor treatment by the producers, or higher price beyond the affording capacity for people in California. In consequence, it is too hasty for the author to claim that the bacteria is the crux for the decreased sales of Gulf Coast oysters for the past five years.

What is more, even grant that the sales of Gulf Coast oysters are indeed effected by the bacteria, there is no information to verify that the process devised by scientists is able to rule out the harm of the bacteria, and further increase its sales. Though the author mentions that such process can kill the bacteria, nothing is included to validate that such process would not add other chemicals into the Gulf Coast oysters, which, even though not possibly harmful to people's health, can still seriously effect the taste of the oysters, let alone the unwarranted potential harm to people's health. Moreover, even accept that the process can effectively solve the problems caused by the bacteria, the bad taste of Gulf Coast or other poor qualities might place obstacles to increase its sales. Thus, without ruling out such adverse possibilities, the author can not have its argument convinced.

Last but not least, the author does not offer enough information to testify that the Gulf Coast oyster producers would indeed receive greater profit. As profit has close relations with both expense and income, even though people in California might pay as much as for northeastern Atlantic Coast oysters, on the one hand, the higher expense for transporting or storing Gulf Coast oysters seriously undermine the quantity of profit for its producers. On the other hand, it is also possible that the value of Gulf Coast oysters are overwhelming those of the northeastern Atlantic Coast oysters, the equal price for the two kinds of oysters means little profit for average pound of oysters. Accordingly, on the basis of such suspicions, the argument is far from convincing.

In brief, the argument is made on the basis of several ungrounded evidences, to better improve the argument, the author needs to provide detailed information to verify all the suspicions above.