Humans arrived in the Kaliko Islands about 7,000 years ago, and within 3,000 years most of the large mammal species that had lived in the forests of the Kaliko Islands had become extinct. Yet humans cannot have been a factor in the species' extinctions, because there is no evidence that the humans had any significant contact with the mammals. Further, archaeologists have discovered numerous sites where the bones of fish had been discarded, but they found no such areas containing the bones of large mammals, so the humans cannot have hunted the mammals. Therefore, some climate change or other environmental factor must have caused the species' extinctions.
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.
In this argument, the author concludes that it must be some climate change or other environmental factors that have caused the species’ extinctions in the Kaliko Islands. To validate this conclusion, the author cites the following fact about: there is a lack of evidence on significant contact between humans and the mammals; archaeologists found no sites containing bones of large mammals. Close examination of evidence and the assumptions, however, reveals that none can lend credible support to the argument.
Firstly, given the unfortunate lack of evidence on direct contact between humans and mammals, the author assumes that humans should not be the reason for the extinctions. However, this depends on the additional assumption that there won’t be an indirect influence due to the absence of significant contact. In all likelihood, when humans first arrived in Kaliko, they occupied large amounts of land for farming, which took up space and resources previously enjoyed by the mammals and gradually caused their extinct. In this way, human activities lead to the extinction of the mammals even though there is no straight contact between them. In order to reinforce the argument, the author has to present more information which can effectively exclude the possibility of indirect influences of humans on the mammals.
Secondly, the author points out that no areas containing the bones of large mammals were found by archaeologists while there are numerous sites containing fish bones. However, a problematic conclusion that humans have never hunted mammals is derived from the fact. Since the author falsely assumes that the absence of mammal bones implies that mammals are not in the diet of the hunters, he must neglect the possibility that instead of gathering all the large bones together, hunters ate the preys wherever they found them. While, on the contrary, they tend to collect fish before eating them, given the convenience of carrying the much smaller preys. In this case, without any credence to bolster the argument, the author could not indisputably indicate that humans have not hunted the mammals.
Thirdly, even if there is no significant contact between men and mammals and even if humans do indeed never hunt on mammals, the conclusion is still dubious because it is based on an unstated assumption that no other factors besides human and environment can be the cause of the extinction. It is entirely possible that a new kind of disease among the mammals had broken out during the 3000 years after the arrival of human, which caused thousands of deaths and eventually wiped out the mammal species. Moreover, the extinctions can also be the consequence of severe competitions between the species, most less competitive species gradually died out in the years. Therefore, adjusting the assumption is of great necessity.
To sum up, the author fails to substantiate his claim that the environmental factors must cause the extinction of the mammals. To reinforce it, the author would have to present a meticulous discussion on both direct and indirect contacts between men and mammals; he would also have to revise his assumptions on whether humans have hunted the mammals and what other factors could be responsible for the extinction. Therefore, if the argument had included the given factors discussed above, it would have been more thorough and logically acceptable.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not exactly. better to say: maybe fish is mammal's main source of food while human beings eat them.
argument 3 -- OK
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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: 20 15
No. of Words: 545 350
No. of Characters: 2795 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.832 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.128 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.682 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 213 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 170 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.478 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.54 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 645, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...re is no straight contact between them. In order to reinforce the argument, the au...
^^
Line 7, column 602, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[1]
Message: Use only 'less' (without 'most') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: less
...evere competitions between the species, most less competitive species gradually died out ...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, first, firstly, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, still, therefore, third, thirdly, while, as to, kind of, on the contrary, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2878.0 2260.96107784 127% => OK
No of words: 544.0 441.139720559 123% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29044117647 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.82947280553 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78816849247 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 252.0 204.123752495 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.463235294118 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 881.1 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 11.0 4.22255489022 261% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.4641909051 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 143.9 119.503703932 120% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.2 23.324526521 117% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.95 5.70786347227 139% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.207598054338 0.218282227539 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0651671961789 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0448695774065 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123601081385 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0232466952634 0.0628817314937 37% => 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: 17.1 14.3799401198 119% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.7 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.81 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 132.0 98.500998004 134% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.