Revolutionary Realism
Scar Art
Why? - Gao Xiaohua 1978
Father - Luo Zhongli 1980
Spring Breeze is Awake - He Duoling 1981
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that the presence of police in a neighborhood doesn’t deter crime. His support is that the areas with the most police presence also have the most crime.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author observes that high crime is correlated with high policing, and concludes that policing doesn’t reduce crime. This is flawed reasoning, because it’s quite possible that more police are assigned to areas that are already high in crime. Without the extra policing, perhaps these areas would have even higher crime rates.
A
attempts to support its conclusion by making an appeal to emotions
The author doesn’t make an emotional appeal; he cites evidence for his case.
B
fails to consider the possibility that criminals may commit crimes in more than one neighborhood
Even if true, this wouldn’t have a clear impact on the relationship between how heavily a neighborhood is policed and its crime rate. So this can’t be the flaw.
C
draws a general conclusion from too small a sample of data
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of relying on an unrepresentative sample. We have no indication that the author’s sample size is insufficient, so it’s not applicable here.
D
fails to consider the possibility that police presence in a particular area is often a response to the relatively high crime rate in that area
If this were true, it would explain why high crime areas tend to have high police presence. This indicates a flaw in the author’s reasoning, because these areas might have even higher crime without high police presence.
E
takes for granted that public resources devoted to police presence could be allocated in another manner that would be a stronger deterrent to crime
The author never suggests that he has an opinion about other ways resources could be allocated, so this can’t be the flaw.