Airline industry representatives have recently argued that flying is safer than driving, citing two separate studies. First, US statistics show that each year there are approximately 40,000 deaths in automobile accidents versus only approximately 200 in flight accidents. Second, studies indicate that pilots are four times less likely than average to have accidents on the road.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to determine whether the argument is reasonable. Be sure to explain what effects the answers to these questions would have on the validity of the argument
The purpose of the airline industries’ argument, elucidated in the passage above, is to convince the reader that flying is safer than driving. The industry representatives cite two pieces of evidence to support their conclusion—first, that fewer people die per year in flight; second, that airline pilots get into fewer driving accidents. To show that these arguments are reasonable, several questions need to be answered. The first question has to do with the proportion of deaths represented by the figures of annual deaths; the second has to do with the degree to which being a safe driver translates into being a safe pilot.
Suppose the CEO of a car company tried to convince shareholders that the company was succeeding in a marketing campaign to sell a certain kind of car by saying that over 10,000 cars had sold since the campaign began. The obvious question on the shareholders’ minds should be the fraction of the total number of cars sold that this figure represents. If 10,000 cars represents less than 1% of the entire market on cars for this period, presumably they would not be very pleased with the campaign. Similarly, knowing that only 200 people, versus 40,000 people, died in flight versus on the road is not informative until we know the proportion of the total number of fliers and drivers that these numbers represent. If far fewer people fly than drive, 200 could represent a large fraction of all fliers. And if the proportion of flightdeaths is higher than the proportion of car-deaths, then regardless of the total number, it would be fair to say that flying is not safer than driving. The question that needs to be answered, in other words, is how many people fly and drive each year. This would then allow us to calculate the portion of the total that these figures represent.
Turning to the second piece of evidence used to support the argument that flying is safer than driving, we learn that airline pilots are safer-than-average drivers, having four times fewer accidents than the norm. In order for this fact to be convincing, several questions would need to be answered. First of all, we would need to know whether being a safe driver translates into being a safe pilot. But more than this, we would need to know what being a safe pilot means. Keep in mind that we are solely evaluating the argument that flying is safe relative to driving. So knowing that pilots are “safe fliers” is nonsensical unless we can evaluate that claim in the context of driving. Therefore, a question that needs to be answered to make this argument valid is what having a “safe pilot” means for airline passengers. An example of an answer to this question that would make the argument more valid would be that for any given hour of flight, pilots are vastly less likely to crash than for a given hour of driving. This is quite clearly a long distance away from the statement as initially phrased—evidence that the argument as-is is in need of serious revision.
In sum, we see in this passage the beginnings of a coherent argument, but more information is needed in order to fully evaluate the strength of the claims. Namely, we would need to know what fractions 200 and 40,000 represent of the entire population of fliers and drivers, respectively, and also what implications being a safe driver has for being a safe airline pilot
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 580 350
No. of Characters: 2708 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.907 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.669 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.502 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 182 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.217 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.403 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.696 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.47 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.162 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 22, column 38, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'mean'?
Suggestion: mean
...d need to know what being a safe pilot means. Keep in mind that we are solely evalua...
^^^^^
Line 25, column 31, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...ake this argument valid is what having a 'safe pilot' means for airlin...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, second, similarly, so, then, therefore, as for, as to, kind of, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 36.0 19.6327345309 183% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 80.0 55.5748502994 144% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2863.0 2260.96107784 127% => OK
No of words: 578.0 441.139720559 131% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95328719723 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.90322654589 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8159505662 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 250.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.432525951557 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 844.2 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 13.0 4.96107784431 262% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.6963939235 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.47826087 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1304347826 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.95652173913 5.70786347227 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 32.0 5.15768463074 620% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.190401378048 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0650630152565 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0595422230253 0.0701772020484 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0571842639339 0.128457276422 45% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0671269674684 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.