- practice awa - "timed" and without any prior practice .
analysis of an argument.
the following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by olympic foods, a processor of frozen foods:
"over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. in color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3 by 5 inch print fell from 50 cents for five day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one day service in 1984. the same principle applies to the processing of food. and since olympic foods will soon celebrate its 25th birthday. we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximise profits."
discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. in your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. for example, you may need to consider what questionalbe assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. you can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound,and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
[30 mins]
the aforementioned argument in asserting that olympic foods will enjoy the kind of success that color film processing did, in reducing costs and increasing efficiency, appears at first glance to be a coherent. one could also say legitimate argument. however upon further examination of the argument and its underlying structure. a number of flaws become so evident that one cannot take the argument or its conclusion seriously. among the most pivotal shortcomings of the argument are its inability to adress or even acknowledge its assumptions, as well negligence of the information necessary to substantiate its claims.
the premier assumption that the argument makes is that the example of the film processing industry can be generalized and making the faulty assumption that what worked for it, will be true even in the case of a disparate industry such as food processing. the generalization of the film industry is uncalled for and could be a very specific example of a success story which had a number of other underlying factors responsible for it. such as, increase in competition causing a reduction in prices, cheaper equipment adding to the cheaper processing, lesser demand causing a drop in prices, paper prices fallign et cetera. none of these reasons can be applied to the food processing industry and the assumption of generalization is not justified.
another assumption that can be made is that experience creates efficiency, for which no underlying proof is provided. let us consider a hypothetical situation of a manager with a lot of experience but one who is not able to cope with the advent of technology. although he might possess a plethora of experience, he might not exactly be successful due to the immense retraining effort required and updation with technology. hence it is not always true that experience creates efficiency and this assumption is also essentially unsupported.
the third assumption which the argument makes is that 25 years is a considerable amount of time in which to gain experienxce. again without any proof whatsoever.the amount of experience necessary is highly industry specific and varies from industry to industry, for instance 25 years might be a lifetime in the software industry, but a 25 year old automobile firm might still be learning from its mistakes. hence generalizing "experience" over all industries is another important shortcoming that the argument possesses.
the fourth assumption made by the argument is that minimized costs, maximise profits. this is an extremelty short sighted viewpoint and is seldom true. what a company fails to realise that profit is not only dependent on cost but also on sales, and if costs are reduced then quality will reduce which might adversely affect sales. however we might have accepted this assumption had a succint example been provided, however the lack of information provided does not enable us to make these very assumptions.
this argument might hold true if each specifc assumptions are strengthened by newer and relevant information or simply more data is provided, which might enable us to make more informed judgements on the information provided. hence in conclusion the argument is extremely incoherent, and the assumptions mentioned above need to be strengthened before the validity of the argument can be guaged.
