The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.
"Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and thus that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The given argument is flawed for a number of reasons. It makes a number of crass assumptions which would make it seem like it depends heavily on flimsy logic. To mention a few, Dr. Field's observations are from 20 years ago and Tertia may have gone through plenty of changes in this span of 20 years. Also, it assumes that Dr. Karp's interview centric approach has been conducted with perfection and this, in a sense, genralizes that supreme of interview centered approaches over the observation centered approaches which is inherently flawed.
First, two decades is a long span of time during which the village may have undergone abundant changes in terms of its populace and culture. People may have moved into Tertia from various places and this might have increased the diversity of the village. This goes to show that the population may have gone a significant change, due to which there may have been a radical change in the way that children are reared. We are also unbeknownst to the issue of granularity; there is no proof provided that the experiments conducted both considered the same kind of people from the same locality of the village. The village might have inhabitants from different cultures living in different parts. Had the argument stated that the granularity of both the experiments is the same and that the populace considered is the same in both the cases, it would have added lot more sense of genuineness to it.
Furthermore, the argument assumes that children "talking about their biological parents" goes to show that they were reared by thier biological parents. This is very flimly logic which assumes that talking about their biological parents would also mean that the children were actually taken care of by them, which of course is not the case unless a formal proof for the same is provided. For strengthening the argument, Dr. Karp should provide warranted evidence that the aforementioned assumption is valid in all cases.
Finally, there is no evidence that the experiments conducted by Dr. Karp's team were conducted on the same kind of people as in the case of Dr. Field. We do not know if Dr. Field used graduate students or certified experts to perform the observations. Even if we were to assume that both the experiments were conducted by the same kind of people, it would be unwarranted for us to generalize that the Interview-Centric approach is better than the Observation-Centric approach. This generalization might depend on a variety of factors and it may be variegated as per the environment or the topic of research. For us to believe in such a claim, there should be robust proof that the interview centric approach has superseded the observation centric approach in a variety of environments spanning varied topics. Also, the argument must state whether the leve of expetise of the people conducting the experiments was similar.
Thus, the argument is flawed for various reasons which must be accounted for in order for us to believe that Dr. Karp's viewpoint is completely valid in all cases. Of course, the assumptions may be valid in all actuality, however, until there is evidence of the same, the argument fails to make its case with cogency and strength. If the given issues are addressed in the future and the argument still holds, we may believe Dr. Karp's viewpoints.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
more arguments wanted. here goes a sample:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-21-outline
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 561 350
No. of Characters: 2722 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.867 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.852 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.758 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 183 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.173 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.773 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.315 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.535 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.156 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, so, still, then, thus, kind of, of course, talking about, in all cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 24.0 13.6137724551 176% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2788.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 561.0 441.139720559 127% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9696969697 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.86676880123 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84509736355 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 246.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.438502673797 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 869.4 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.3159582145 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.727272727 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.5 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.04545454545 5.70786347227 106% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.129194527198 0.218282227539 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0429976739736 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0447422268478 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0788162821259 0.128457276422 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0267136472293 0.0628817314937 42% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.84 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.28 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => 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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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.