GRE Argument 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 entir

The author of this passage states that an interview-centered method of studying child-rearing traditions is much more accurate than the observation-centered method used by Dr. Field in his study of the children of Tertia. In order to do this, the author, Dr. Karp builds up the argument based on the recent interviews conducted with the children of Tertia. However, the arguments laid down by Dr. Karp are not conclusive enough. His argument is not properly substantiated and in order to reach the conclusion given by Dr. Karp, a lot more evidence. Only then can this argument be properly evaluated.
Firstly, Dr. Karp mentions that in his interviews with the children of Tertia, he saw that these children talked mostly about their biological parents instead of other adults of the village. However, this statement alone is not enough to corroborate that the children were not raised by the entire village. In order to prove his hypothesis, the author must provide evidence that talking about one's biological parents insinuates that one was reared only by his biological parents and not by the entire village. If the author cannot provide such evidence, then this whole argument falls apart.
Secondly, no information is provided regarding the number of children interviewed. Even if we assume that talking about one's parents implies that one is raised by one's parents and not by the entire village, it's still not clear if these results will hold true for all the children. If the number of children interviewed was very small, then it might be possible that those children were raised by their biological parents but this doesn't mean that all the children of Tertia were raised by their biological parents. The author extrapolates the interview results further to say that these will provide an accurate understanding of child rearing traditions in other cultures as well. The author needs to provide whether this result can be used for the entire population of Tertia and other islands as well. In case the author is not able to provide evidence bolstering this claim, it cannot be concluded that interview-centered approach is better than observation-ceneterd approach.
However, if we assume that the author can provide evidence supporting the claims made, is it true to say that one failure refutes a theory? It is entirely plausible that the children of village of Tertia act an outlier to observation-centered theory. The author needs to provide evidence that this failure successfully refutes the observation-centered theory. Also, it might be the case that Dr. Karp is using this opportunity to denigrate Dr. Field. Only if the author can provide evidence against these arguments can he/she conclusively say that interview-centered approach of studying child rearing traditions is better than observation-centered approach.
It is not implausible that interview-centered approach is more accurate than observation-centered approach but the argument and evidence provided by the author is rife with loopholes. More evidence is needed to prove this hypothesis. Whether talking about parents implies that the children were reared by their parents only is a moot point. More evidence is needed to prove that the study conducted by Dr. Karp is enough to extrapolate the results for the entire population. Also, Dr. Karp needs to substantiate his claim with more evidence so that it can be proved that one failure of the observation-centered approach implies that interview-centered approach is much more accurate. Without all this, the author cannot conclusively prove that his approach is better than Dr. Field's approach.