▶ Your Answer :
Reporting the seasonal moving patterns of arctic deer and
related factors, the author here concludes that the major reason for the decrease
of the deer is global warming. However, this argument relies on a serious of
unproven assumptions, thus is not persuasive and needs more evidence to
substantiate its claims.
To begin with, the argument claims that arctic deer
search for food by moving over ice covering some of the sea waters separating
the islands. According to this statement, it can be assumed that the species
feed only in winter time, but it should not be the case. Whenever the ice is
not frozen enough to walk over, how do the deer search food within their geographically
limited areas? This question should be examined to suffice this first
assumption.
On top of that, citing the local hunters’ reports, the
writer claimed that deer populations are declining, in which, however, more
in-depth data about the losing numbers should be scrutinized. First, where does
the less number occur? If the areas that the hunters observed were only north
side of the habitat, the other regions may maintain the normal populations. Rather,
if the lowered numbers are aggregated all across the habitat, it would be more
plausible.
Besides, the source of the information, the hunters,
must be diversified. The one source can have bias in their report, therefore,
multiple sources should be introduced for better evidence such as, opinions
from researchers, photographers, or residents.
Lastly, but most importantly, the author posed that the
main reason for the declining is the global warming, however, the correlation between
the two values was not effectively made. “Coincide” was the writer’s word
choice when stating the relationship between global warming and the deer case,
thus more concrete corroboration that can support this opinion must be
provided. It is a common sense that global warming may cause the ice melting,
however, we do not know when the given areas’ ice melting has been influenced
by global warming. Therefore, for instance, historically analyzed data about the
beginning of the three factors should be taken into account: global warming,
ice melting, and declining of the deer.
In sum, even though assuming that the global warming
could be the reason for the declining of the arctic deer population, the
argument is not eloquent because the argument relies on scant assumptions. In
order to evaluate the argument more appropriately, I would need to know the following
information: how the deer feed during the other seasons, where the less numbers
were observed, whether there are more sources about the declining phenomenon,
and more concrete data about the correlation (e.g., time tracking) between the
global warming and the deer population.
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