Argument 169

TOPIC: ARGUMENT169 - The following appeared in a letter from a department chairperson to the president of Pierce University.
"Some studies conducted by Bronston College, which is also located in a small town, reveal that both male and female professors are happier living in small towns when their spouses are also employed in the same geographic area. Therefore, in the interest of attracting the most gifted teachers and researchers to our faculty and improving the morale of our entire staff, we at Pierce University should offer employment to the spouse of each new faculty member we hire. Although we cannot expect all offers to be accepted or to be viewed as an ideal job offer, the money invested in this effort will clearly be well spent because, if their spouses have a chance of employment, new professors will be more likely to accept our offers."
WORDS: 436 TIME: 00:47:59 DATE: 2008-3-14 22:07:17

At first glance, it seems reasonable that governors at Pierce University should offer profession for to the spouse of every fresh professor they hire, as the issue presents. However, close scrutiny of evidence unveils that this argument actually suffers a few critical flaws. For example, the credibility of studies conducted by Bronston College is questionable; besides, the speaker is too cursory to assert the conclusion aforementioned. Aside from these two pitfalls, there are still certain other flaws, which will be discussed in detail and respectively.

In the first place, the speaker does not give enough information about participants referenced in Bronston College's studies. It is possible that those who are required to fill tables are altogether old men or women, and they are in their afterlife. Naturally, these senior citizens prefer to share more time with their partners, instead of considering about salary, location and the like. Another possible case is that the studies are not involved with enough participants, which would otherwise weaken the credibility of the studies. Supposing that faculty at Bronston College merely investigate no more 10 professors who age from sixties to eighties, the result of the studies is then meaningless.

In the second place, the speaker mistakenly assumes a correlation amounts to a causal nexus. Bronston College may be complete different from Pierce University in many respects, thus the policy of offering work opportunity for new members' spouses may not work in Pierce University. Consider, for example, Pierce University is a women-based campus, while Bronston College belongs to ordinary ones. Therefore, governors at Pierce University will bog down to a embarrassed circumstance that almost no suitable position for men. And another possible case does exist. Bronston College is among top 50 in state, while Pierce University ranks beyond 200. Thus, prominent professors may reckon Bronston as their first choice. In any of these cases, effect of this policy will not be so conspicuous as the speaker asserts.

Thirdly, the speaker fails to demonstrate that positions in Pierce University are appealing to distinguished researchers. It is possible that teaching facilities in this university is out of date, thereby not many teachers will take Pierce University into account. Besides, there are also many other factors that may disgust researcher--such as low salary, bad office environment and vulgar culture of Pierce University.

In conclusion, the argument actually has several flaws as discussed above, and is not convincing as it stands. To solidify the argument, the arguer would have to provide evidence that the studies conducted by Bronston College is credible, and demonstrate that Bronston College and Pierce are more or less the same in many respects.