ARGUMENT 37 Palean baskets 是否是由Palea村所唯一拥有

TOPIC: ARGUMENT37 - Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palean and therefore were believed to have been unique to the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could only have crossed it by boat, but there is no evidence that the Paleans had boats. And boats capable of carrying groups of people and cargo were not developed until thousands of years after the Palean people disappeared. Moreover, Paleans would have had no need to cross the river-the woods around Palea are full of nuts, berries, and small game. It follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not unique to Palea.

WORDS: 403          TIME: 00:40:00          DATE: 2011-4-11 23:09:15

 

In this argument, the author concludes that the so-called Palean baskets were no unique to Palea. At first glance, this argument seems to be convincing, but further reflection reveals that these evidences neither constitute a logical statement in support of its conclusion nor providing compelling support making this argument sound and invulnerable.

 

The threshold problem with this argument is that the author assumes that the Palean people have never been to Lithos for the reason that there is no evidence that the Palean people had boats and could not cross the Brim River. It is quite possible that the Paleans went to Lithos not through the Brim River. For example, maybe there is a very secret road from Paleans to Lithos. It is possible that this river is very shallow and even there was no river thousands of years ago, or Palean people have some small boats to across the river. Until the author provides further evidence to exclude all these concerns, it is unfounded to reach the conclusion involved in the argument.

 

The second flaw that weakens the logic of this argument is that the author assumes that Palean people want to cross the river for the nuts, berries and so on. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that it is necessarily case and it is quite possible that Palean cross the river for a better living space, not for food. In short, without better evidence ruling out these and other alternative explanations, it is reasonable to cast considerable doubt on this assumption.

 

The last but not the least important, even if the author can substantiate all of the foregoing assumptions, his assumption that if Palean people can’t go to Lithos, then the so-called Palean baskets also can’t be removed to Lithos is still unwarranted, because no compelling evidence is provided to affirm this assumption. It is much more possible that other people who are not Palean people go to the Lithos and bring the Palean baskets with them. Another case is the Palean basket float on the river and move to Lithos by itself. Under any scenario, adopting the author’s propel might harm rather than benefit.

 

To sum up, the conclusion lacks credibility because the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to what the arguer maintains. Therefore, if the author had considered the given factors discussed above, the argument would have been more through and logically acceptable.