|
11.In the first four years that Montoya has served as mayor of the city of San Perdito, the population has decreased and the unemployment rate has increased.Two businesses have closed for each new business that has opened. Under varro, who served as mayor for four years before Montoya, the unemployment rate decreased and the population increased. Clearly, the residents of San Perdito would be best served if they voted Montoya out of office and reelected Varro. The conclusion endorsed in this argument is that the residents of San Perdito should vote Varro in replace of Montoya. First of all, the author points out that under Montoya's leadership, the population of San Perdito has decreased while the unemployment rate has increased. In addition, he also reasons that everything was becoming better when Varro was the mayor of San Perdito four years ago. What's more, the author also assumes that more businesses have closed than those that have opened. At first glance, the author's argument appears to be somewhat convincing, further reflection reveals that the author's argument is based on some dubious assumptions and partiality in the nature of the evidence provided to justify the conclusion. A careful examination would reveal how groundless the conclusion is. Firstly, the author commits the fallacy of causal oversimplification. The line of reasoning is that the decreased population and the increased unemployment rate coincided with the fact that Montoya was the mayor of San Perdito at that time so that the latter is the cause of the former. There're no strong evidence to show that two things mentioned above have a causal relationship. Perhaps the global economy is going down at that time which might be a reasonable cause of the problem. Secondly, the argument rests on the assumption that "all things are equal". The fact that Varro managed San Perdito very well four years ago can't guarantee that you will manage the city well in the future since a lot of conditions have changed. For instance, more population is ready for a job but the demand is not as large as the supply. Thus it's imprudent to assert Varro will do as well as he did before. Thirdly, the data cited by the author is too vague to be informative. The claim doesn't indicate what's the exact number of populaton and the exact number of unemployment rate during Montoya's leadership. In addition, we don't have a clear idea of who conducted the survey. It might be Varro's supporter who conducted the survey so as to in favor of Varro. To conclude, the author's conclusion is not persuasive as it stands. To make the argument logically acceptable, the author should have to show that what economic circustance they each are facing during their rein. To solidify the conclusion, the author would have to provide concrete evidence to demonstrate that Varro did a lot of improvements to prompt the development of San Perdito while Montoya didn't. Only with more convincing evidence could this argument become more than just an emotional appeal. | 
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2007-1-3 23:02:00
楼主
