The following appeared as part of an article in the business section of a local newspaper.
"Motorcycle X has been manufactured in the United States for over 70 years. Although one foreign company has copied the motorcycle and is selling it for less, the company has failed to attract motorcycle X customers—some say because its product lacks the exceptionally loud noise made by motorcycle X. But there must be some other explanation. After all, foreign cars tend to be quieter than similar American-made cars, but they sell at least as well. Also, television advertisements for motorcycle X highlight its durability and sleek lines, not its noisiness, and the ads typically have voice-overs or rock music rather than engine-roar on the sound track."
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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The author argues against a possible explanation stating that the lack of exceptionally loud noise is the reason for failure of a motorcycle company to attract the customers of Motorcyle X, inspite of copying the exact same model and selling that model for less. To support his arguement, he compares the sales of the Motorcycle to those of foreign made cars, which are quitier than American-made cars. He further argues by stating that advertisements of Motorcycle X highlight its durability and sleek lines, not its noisiness, and the ads typically have voice-overs or rock music rather than engine-roar on the sound track. However, his reasoning is flawed.
Firstly he makes an assumption that sales of the Foreign-made Motorcycle would be similar to those of Quiter foreign-made cars. He implicitly assumes that the feature loud noise impacts the sales of cars and motorcyles in similar manner.
Secondly he fails to provide the relation between feature advertised and feature preferred by customers. Just because one feature is not highlighted in advertisements of a product does not mean that the feature is not preferred by customers.
Also, he assumes that such features are not highlighted in the Foreign-made Motorcycle advertisements.
However , his arguement would have been more sound, had he provided some evidence of similarity between sales of foreign -made cars and Motorcycles in relation to the feature of Loud noise. Also, any evidence that eshtablishes a positive co-relation between features highlighted in Motorcycle advrtisements and features preferred by customers will strengthen his arguement.