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#125The following appeared as part of a business plan by the Cpaital Idea investment firm. “In recent years the worldwide demand for fish has grown, and improvement in fishing technology have made larger catches and thus increased supply possible: for example, last year’s tuna catch was 9 percent greater than the previous year’s. To capitalize on these trends, we should therefore, invest in the new pugfish processing plant on pugfish island, where increasing revenues from tourism indicate a strong local economy.” In this argument, the planner concludes that the firm should invest in a new Pugfish processing plat on Pugfish
Island because of recent trends and the strong local economy. To support his conclusion, the planner points out that last year’s tuna catch was 9 percent greater than the previous year’s tuna catch. In addition, the planner also assumes that those trends that fish catch increases continually will go on. At first glance, the planner’s argument appears to be somehow appealing, while a close examination will reveal how groundless it is. We do not have to look very far to see the invalidity of the argument. The argument is problematic for the following reasons. In the first place, the mere fact that last year’s tuna catch was 9 percent greater than the previous year’s is not sufficient to support the assumption that there is a trend that fish catch will keep increasing. In fact, the planner has obviously neglected the possibility of other alternative factors such as the climatic change and the abnormal changes in ocean. These alternative influences also lead to the same result. Unless the planner can rule out these factors relevant to the increase in fish production, the assumption that the trend can result in great profits if the firm invests in the fish processing plant can not be accepted. In the second place, what happened in the past does not necessarily happen in the future. The fact that happened several years ago is not a sound evidence to draw a conclusion that it will continue in following years. The planner assumes without justification that the background conditions have remained the same at different times or at different locations. However, it is not clear in this argument whether the current conditions at Pugfish
Island are the same as it used to be in the past. Thus it is impossible to conclude that the good performance in tuna catch last year will promise the same result in the following years. In other words, the statistics from only a few recent years are not necessarily a good indicator of future trends. To sum up, considering the aforementioned reasons, I would like to conclude that the planner had better to make a much closer examination concerning all relevant factors, including every aspects, rather that only one. Furthermore, the planner should not take the past information and statistics to predict the unknown future. It is so risky that this decision may lead the firm to great loss. Consequently, I firmly believe that the argument is flawed and that the planner should take more factors into consideration. 我本身水平并不是很高...大家将就指点指点
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发表于 2005-10-20 00:35:00
