2.The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city’s council on the arts:
“In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city’s art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city’s art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city’s funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television.”
作者推理过程：
近五年来，看艺术电视节目的人多了，而且去艺术博物馆的人也多了。而最近企业赞助公共电视的钱少了，所以去博物馆的人也会少。因此，政府资助艺术事业应该多投入到公共电视里去。
逻辑漏洞：
1. In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents ……than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago。5年前调查了100个人，40个人说看电视节目;5年后调查了1000人，46(增加15%)个人说看电视节目。这能说明看电视的人多了么?
2. the number of people visiting our city’s art museums has increased by a similar percentage。去博物馆的人确实是多了15%，但是和电视节目也许是无关的，可能是因为博物馆采取了一系列宣传措施，使得市民喜欢去博物馆了。
漏洞1和2联合起来，就说明看电视节目和去博物馆没有必然联系。那么后面所说的企业资助电视节目的钱少了，所以去博物馆的人也会少就站不住脚了。
范文：
In this argument the author concludes that the city should allocate some of its arts funding to public television. The conclusion is based on two facts: (1) attendance at the city’s art museum has increased proportionally with the increases in visual-arts program viewing on public television, and (2) public television is being threatened by severe cuts in corporate funding. While this argument is somewhat convincing, a few concerns need to be addressed.
To begin with, the argument depends on the assumption that increased exposure to the visual arts on television, mainly public television, has caused a similar increase in local art-museum attendance. However, just because increased art-museum attendance can be statistically correlated with similar increases in television viewing of visual-arts programs, this does not necessarily mean that the increased television viewing of arts is the cause of the rise in museum attendance.
Moreover, perhaps there are other factors relevant to increased interest in the local art museum; for instance, maybe a new director had procured more interesting, exciting acquisitions and exhibits during the period when museum attendance increased, in addition, the author could be overlooking a common cause of both increases. It is possible that some larger social or cultural phenomenon is responsible for greater public interest in both television arts programming and municipal art museums.
To be fair, however, we must recognize that the author’s assumption is a special case of a more general one that television viewing affects people’s attitudes and behavior. Common sense and observation tell me that this is indeed the case. After all, advertisers spend billions of dollars on television ad time because they trust this assumption as well.
In conclusion, I am somewhat persuaded by this author’s line of reasoning. The argument would be strengthened if the author were to consider and rule out other significant factors that might have caused the increase in visits to the local art museum. |
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