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41The following appeared in a health newsletter. "A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of bicycle-related accidents has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets." Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

In the newsletter, a call on the government to enhance bicycle safety has been made. The writer concludes they need to concentrate more on bicycle safety education rather than focus on asking bicyclists to wear helmets. In order to support this conclusion, the author cited a nationwide study to show that bicyclists would be much safer without helmets. Even though this argument seems really appealing at first glance, unfortunately, a close scrutiny reveals its groundless. The unwarranted evidence and flawed assumptions diminish the reliability of this report. The weakens of this are listed as follow.

To begin with, the author assumes since the number of bicycle-related accidents doubled during the decades so bicycle problems are more serious than ever. Although this seems possible, the author shows no further evidence to reinforce this crucial assumption. It is likely that the number of bicycle-related accidents simply increased because more people bicycling than 10 years ago, so the risk of dangerous during the whole riding may still be the same. An appropriate example is not hard to find. A further investigation on the bicyclists' number during these years may show there are 1000 percent more people enjoy riding nowadays so the 200 percent increased in accidents may suggest nothing. As a result, the author's reasoning is questionable unless the author can convince me these scenarios are impossible.

Even the assumption that there are more bicycle accidents these days is reliable. The author simply suggests the reason are due to more bicyclists wearing helmets, since there are 45 percent more people reported wearing helmets comparing to 10 years ago according to the national report. However there is no guarantee that it is persuasive/efficient in this case. There is no evidence to show that people would take more risks if they are wearing helmets. It is quite possible that the reason why they take helmets are because they cherish their safety more than other people. In this case, they would not risk to injure during riding. Moreover, the study did not show how many people evolved in the accidents are wearing helmets. If all the people in the bicycle accidents are not wearing helmets, then maybe it is better to suggest government to encouraging people put on helmets. Without accounting for these and all alternative explanations, the recommendation is not flawless.

The last but not the least important, even if the evidence turns out to support the foregoing assumptions, the assumption that government education on bicycle safety could reduce the bicycle accidents is not plausible. Being forced to take safety education, may even cause reverse psychology among people, which would make them even less likely to obey safety rules. Additionally, the bicyclists could be the victims in accidents since most of the accidents may caused by cars. In this case, government should concentrate on educating people about car safety rather than bicycle safety.

To sum up, the suggestion lacks credibility because it is based on nothing more than pure speculation and perhaps wishful thinking, the author fails to employ strong evidence in order to substantiate the conclusion. In order to draw a better argument, the author need to give more details and evaluate all possible alternatives.

竹林中人

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