The coalition of concerned scientists not only came up with statements full of fallacies but also full of weak fallacies with no support at all. The reason for this is that the scientists have attempted to find the truth to a conclusion instead of the necessary truth which was if fresh water was bound to become a very scarce resource on the planet in 50 years.
A fallacy refers to a false believe based on some unsound argument. A fallacy is normally faulty in terms of reasoning and thus is bound to mislead the reader with its information. The reader is thus persuaded to believe their side. The presence of fallacy in this argument is strong. One major fallacy is the confusion of necessary with sufficient conditions. Such a fallacy is casual in nature and is mainly employed when someone assumes necessary conditions in an event with adequate conditions for the event to take place. The event in this case is the report on the percentage of fresh water from the Appalachian mountains that has caused a concern among the citizens with a likeliness of its reduction in volume. The percentages, however, emanate from another form of fallacy known as unwarranted generalization. This is because the generalization has been made out of insufficient evidence. In the argument given, the tests have been carried out every April for 10 years. Every month of April is expectedly the same, however, sometimes the place in which the tests are performed determine the outcome with fluctuation realized in that it would experience more rainfall this year and less in the next year. All the necessary elements are found in the argument but there is a lack of adequately strong supporting evidence. The little percentage emanating from research scares citizens making them think of ways to save water. I have not come across any formal fallacies in this argument because of lack of defect in formal defects since the defect is solely based on the content of the argument. The lack of formal logic does not allow us to formalize our reasoning. Formal logic is one that can be formalized or has been formalized.
Probably everyone is now thinking how I distinguish between a fallacious statement and an argument. The best means of doing this is to try and understand the difference between a fallacy and an argument. An argument refers to an action or set of beliefs that persuade the reader that a certain idea or action is wrong land is usually considered to be sound in nature. A fallacy on the other hand is an unsound argument that contains misleading statements used in order to scare people into believing in them or trying to persuade them to believe. The ability to detect and avoid fallacies in researches has been seen as a supplement to the criteria of good reasoning. My argument that this is a fallacy is supported by the fact that testing is done once every April for 10 years. This does not give us enough prove of the argument and hence a fallacious argument. Probably is the research is carried out in April, then one or two months later in a year, then compared to the previous findings, then maybe it would provide adequate evidence of the scarcity in fresh water. This could possibly give us the reason why the same is happening. A good example is citing and carrying out a study on global warming and why it could be a reason and the providing ways to help keep the fresh water source alive.
