argument14，感觉好像没太抓住重点错误。求指点

eagle1015

本想加入胡该小组，但是昨天看了作文互改小组的要求，觉得自己十分不固定的时间可能会耽误别人的进步。所以还是麻烦好心人帮忙指点吧。
特别感谢一下普渡哥......因为这两天求拍的文章留下了他的掌印.....

题目：the following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.
A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Of the advertising firms studied, those whose executives reported needing no more than 6 hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. These results suggest that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night.

要求：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.

正文：

In this argument, the author recommends that firm shouldhire only those people who have a sleep no more than 6 hours per night. Tosupport this recommendation, the author cites two surveys carried between the advertisingexecutives in Mentian and between the conditions of firms in which theseexecutives work. In my point of view, the argument suffers several logicallyproblems, which renders it unconvincing as it stands.

First of all, the author assumes that the survey whichcontains only 300 samples is representative. However, there is no evidence inthis argument to lend this assumption a reliable hand. Thus, there are a greatmany of conditions could undermine the assumption. For example, are the samplesselected randomly, when the survey carried out? Does the ratio of males andfemales reasonable and commensurate to the real distribution throughout theadvertising enterprise? Does the institution who launched this survey hold aobjective attitude? In short, without much more evidence, the result of surveyhas no significance, and the author cannot conclude that there is arelationship between the amount of sleep of the executives and their success.

Secondly, even though the survey is unexceptionable, theauthor also falsely assumes that the executives who enjoy less amount of sleep bringabout the profit margins and faster growth of the firms. However, the author failsto exclude the other explanations for the prosperity of these firms. Perhaps,the success of these firms dues much to the strict management, or the harmoniousrelationship between the boss and subordinates, or the spirit of solidarity. Allof these explanations, if true, will make the assumption unconvincing.

Thirdly, the author’s recommendation that any ambitiousfirm should only hire this kind of executives relies on the assumption that thecircumstance in advertising enterprise could represent all of the otherpursuits. If this is not the case, then it is entirely possible that conditionswill varies significantly in the other occupations. For example, perhaps the managerswho engage in advertisement always prefer working at night due to the quietenvironment which inspires them to produce coups; or perhaps the advertisingenterprise in Mentian is so prosperous that the executives must work from dawnto dark to finish their massive assignments. Thus, lacking the informationabout the staffs who engage in the other realms, it is difficult to assess themerit of the author’s recommendation.

In sum, the argument baseson a serial of incredible assumptions, thus fails to convince me that, inadvertising domain, the less amounts of executives will lead the firm to abrilliant future, and his recommendation about spreading this experience to allof the other enterprises are even more ridiculous.

普渡哥

In this argument, the author recommends that firm should hire only those people who have a sleep no more than 6 hours per night.

a sleep?