Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The argument made in the problem statement is specious and has quite a few logical fallacies. We can not simply accept the conclusion without further probing into the many assumptions made in the statement.
First of all, to base an argument based on just one occurance of the event of a "Palean" basket being found away from the village is not justified enough. In general, any data will have outliers and this observation or discovery might as well be one. There are numerous ways by which a single basket may have crossed the river. For example, it could've been carried along by strong winds or, in case the baskets are light enough, could've been carried by some of the birds. Efforts should be put into locating more baskets of such type at other locations. In case that a concentrated amount of such baskets is found at another far away place, the conclusion drawn in the statement could be given some consideration.
Another clear assumption that the statement makes is that the river could only be crossed using boats. This is also not necessarily true, as there are other means to cross the river as well. Anthropological studies have shown many ancient civilizations used strong animals such as horses to cross the rivers. This could be the method used by the Palean people as well. If evidence is found supporting this theory, it will directly repudiate the assumption on which the conclusion is based.
Furthermore, the fact that no Palean boats have been found, does not necessarily imply that no boats existed at that time. This is another implicit assumption that statement makes. Again, there could be numerous ways to refute this claim. Maybe, at a certain point in time, the Palean people decided to migrate, taking their boats along, and that is the reason why no boats have been found in or around that region. Again, any evidence of such migration or existence of boats in the area will prove detrimental to the argument presented in the statement.
The fact that the Brim River is currently very deep and broad doesn't mean that it was always that way. Maybe it was a chain of geographical events that made the river take the form that it currently has and that during the prehistoric times is was a calm and narrow river. More investigation is required and a detailed study of the geography of the area is needed. Any evidence found supporting the change in dynamics of the river will weaken the argument as well.
All in all, the above points show that the statement is not cogent enough to be simply accepted as it is and further investigation is necessary to prove its correctness.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 23 15
No. of Words: 456 350
No. of Characters: 2110 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.621 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.627 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.492 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 125 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 88 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.826 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.85 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.435 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.279 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.524 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 79, 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
...d on just one occurance of the event of a 'Palean' basket being found a...
^
Line 5, column 464, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...e light enough, couldve been carried by some of the birds. Efforts should be put into locat...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 63, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
... River is currently very deep and broad doesnt mean that it was always that way. Maybe...
^^^^^^
Line 17, column 242, Rule ID: VBZ_VBD[1]
Message: Did you mean 'it'?
Suggestion: it
...s and that during the prehistoric times is was a calm and narrow river. More inves...
^^
Line 17, column 245, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'been'.
Suggestion: been
...nd that during the prehistoric times is was a calm and narrow river. More investiga...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, if, may, so, well, for example, in general, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2188.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 453.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.83002207506 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61343653406 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6293160751 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.474613686534 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 679.5 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 36.4320326865 57.8364921388 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 95.1304347826 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.6956521739 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.95652173913 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.146886504172 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0398739711111 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.039068986209 0.0701772020484 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0636379760573 0.128457276422 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0481020278134 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.73 12.5979740519 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.58 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 98.500998004 87% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.