"During a recent trial period in which government inspections at selected meat-processing plants were more frequent, the amount of bacteria in samples of processed chicken decreased by 50 percent on average from the previous year's level. If the government were to institute more frequent inspections, the incidence of stomach and intestinal infections throughout the country could thus be cut in half. In the meantime, consumers of Excel Meats should be safe from infection because Excel's main processing plant has shown more improvement in eliminating bacterial contamination than any other plant cited in the government report."

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 questionable 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.

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My WRITE UP:
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The argument given here concludes that frequency of government's inspection of chicken processing plants plays a key role in reducing number of infections throughout the country. Building on this argument, the author concludes that Excel meats would be most safe as they are rated high by Government.There is a lot of data missing to support the authors claim. Also the argument looks weak as it ignores many factors which could have played given some significant input.


Here the argument relies on the frequency of inspection by government, but not on the quality of inspection. Some more details on the methodology of the inspection could have strengthened the argument. Mere a purview of the meat processing facility can hardly improve anything in the processing plant.

Secondly, it is assumed that the condition of meat processing plan decides the level of infection in the meat. It might be the case that the chicken sampled in the previous year's inspected were already infected with the bacteria.

Thirdly, The argument assumes that the bacteria found in meat were same as those for stomach and intestinal infection.No correlation has been made between the bacteria sampled and bacteria responsible for stomach and intestinal infection.

It can be argued againt this argument that factors other than government inspection led to decrease in infection cases.The agrument does not rule out the possiblity that better health care efforts or better protecion against the infection might have contributed more than the government inspection to decrease the infection.

Here the crietria of inspection and parameter's checklists are not defined. It might be the case that the criteria on which the evaluation is done gives more weightage to parameters not related to health on the basis of which Excel meat is rated first.

Without the above points mentioned, the argument looks weak to stand its conclusion. The argument, itself, is inadequate in explaning how government inspection can lead to significant decrease of 50% in bacteria count.