ARGUMENT48 米国有米寒假小组11日作业

cckantUID: 2247822

TOPIC: ARGUMENT48 - The following appeared in a newspaper article published in the country of Corpora.

"Twenty years ago, one half of all citizens in Corpora met the standards for adequate physical fitness as then defined by the national advisory board on physical fitness. Today, the board says that only one quarter of all citizens are adequately fit and suggests that spending too much time using computers may be the reason. But since overall fitness levels are highest in regions of Corpora where levels of computer ownership are also highest, it is clear that using computers has not made citizens less physically fit. Instead, as shown by this year's unusually low expenditures on fitness-related products and services, the recent decline in the economy is most likely the cause, and fitness levels will improve when the economy does."
WORDS: 485          TIME: 0:43:21          DATE: 2007-2-11

Outline:
1)        断言健康情况下降无理
2)        否定电脑因素无理
3)        推测健康相关支出下降作为原因无效

In this argument, the speaker firstly deduces a decline in physical fitness of the citizens of Corpora, rejects the explanation of computer uses to the decline later, and finally asserts that it is the unusually low of expenditures in fitness-related products and services results the decline. After all, the speaker concludes that the fitness levels will improve when the economy does. However, for several errors in the logical deductions, the argument lacks of sufficient convincing capability.  

To begin with, as the definition of physical fitness in twenty years ago may differ from that today, it is groundless to claim that the citizens' physical health condition has declined. Concepts and standards are likely to change as time changes and social development. For example, pathologic gambling problem used to not be considered as a psychological illness before 1970s. Nowadays, it is widely accepted that pathological gambling, as pyromania, is a kind of psychotic disease. Analogously, the definition of physical fitness by the national advisory board may have changed during the past twenty years. Also, within the board' claim that only one quarter of all citizens are adequately fit today, the concept of fitness may have been extended to include psychological fitness, in addition to the changes in definition of physical fitness. Therefore, the simple comparison of proportion of fit citizens according to the claims in different time is not conclusive to the healthy condition changes.

Moreover, the rejection to the computers usage as a reason of decline in physical fitness is not convincing, which bases on the fact only that the highest overall fitness level are in the regions coincide with highest levels of computer ownership. On one hand, the arguer unjustifiably equalizes the computer ownership and computer use. The regions of highest levels of computer ownership do not necessarily the regions of highest levels of computer uses. Regions of highest levels of computer ownership may have moderate use due to higher income level and less extensive use of computer in entertainment. Therefore, the rejection is invalid.

In addition, because the evidence of the unusually decreased expenditure in fitness-related products and services do not have consistent in time for the declined physical fitness as claimed, it is not reasonable to attribute the decline in fitness to economic depression. Firstly, if the decline in fitness indeed exists, it is more likely than this process continued in the last twenty years. The evidence of decreased expenditure of fitness-related products and services in one year has little explanatory power. Secondly, the unusually low fitness-related expenditure this year must not a result of depressed economic prosperity. Thus, as economic condition improves, the fitness-expenditure may not increase correspondingly. Then, even if there is a connection between fitness-expenditure and citizens' fitness level, fitness levels will not improve when the economy does.

In sum, the argument is seriously misleading in its conclusion and deductive process. Better argument requires more specific evidence and rigorous logical processes.