Argument 45

TOPIC: ARGUMENT45 - The following appeared as an editorial in a wildlife journal.
"Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic region. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of a year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed, and cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according to reports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since these reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt, we can conclude that the decline in arctic deer populations is the result of deer being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea."

WORDS: 420 TIME: 00:30:21 DATE: 2008-3-28 21:24:30

The conclusion of this statement is that deer being unable to conform to their traditional migration patterns between islands has caused the decrease of the number of arctic deer. To justify this verdict, the speaker cites the report of local hunters and quotes the effect that the recent global warming trends have on sea ice. However, close scrutiny of evidence unveils that this statement actually suffers from critical fallacies that would undermine the ultimateness.

Consider first the recent information reported by local hunters. These hunters said that the deer populations were declining. However, lacking sufficient evidence makes the reports unpersuasive. All what this statement provides is this result, without any cogent statistic data. Perhaps the hunters were merely engaged in hunting in just a few islands, but the area in which arctic deer live is quite broad. Thus, the credibility of hunters' observation is highly questionable. Moreover, it is equally probable that hunters are the very cause of the decrease of arctic deer. The reason for this is simple: hunters killed the deer. Since the arguer does not tell what kind of animal local hunters pursue, this possibility can not be ruled out.

Consider next the reason that the speaker considers as powerful. Albeit global warming trends is no doubt a fact, this trend is far more from the direct cause of diminishing number of arctic deer. For instance, whether the special ice that melted by higher climate is the very location where arctic deer live is unknown. Maybe the district where these deer search for food is left untended by the worldwide increasing temperature; therefore arctic deer have not influenced by this trend. In addition, supposing that worldwide warming climate has indeed melt the ice that surround the place where arctic deer live, as the speaker maintains, it is highly possible that certain island where arctic deer are fostering their next generation also is becoming warmer, and is abundant of delicious food. Consequently, arctic deer have no longer to move from one island to another and the population of deer keeps the same as before. In short, without considering and ruling out these and other possible potential factors, the speaker is too cursory to arrive at his or her conclusion.

From what discussed above, this statement indeed suffers from several flaws that would weaken the conclusion. To solidify the reasoning, the speaker would have to provide more detailed information about what the local hunters actually had finished, and further demonstrate that islands where arctic deer live are not affected by global warming trends.