Critical Reasoning - Chap2 - Problem Set 1

[ajay]

Critical Reasoning - Chap2 - Problem Set 1 says following
" Environmentalist: The national energy commission's current plan calls for the construction of six new nuclear plants during the next decade. The commission argues that these plants are extremely safe and will have minimal environmental impact on their surrounding communities. However, by locating all six nuclear power plants far from densely populated area's, the govt is tacticaly admitting that these plants do pose a serious helath risk to humans"

According to the book, claim that is being made here is the last sentence which is "by locating all six nuclear power plants far from densely populated area's, the govt is tacticaly admitting that these plants do pose a serious helath risk to humans" but I am really struggling to figure out how could this be a claim.

I think, claim that is being made here is "Plants will have minimal environmental impact on their surrounding communities".
Please help me in clearing my understanding.

Thanks
Ajay

[StaceyKoprince]

Those are both claims, yes, but only one is the conclusion. The conclusion needs to be from the point of view of the author. In this case, the author is the Environmentalist.

Does the Environmentalist believe that "these plants are extremely safe and will have minimal environmental impact on their surrounding communities"? Nope - just the opposite, in fact!

The Environmentalist believes that "by locating all six nuclear power plants far from densely populated areas, the govt is tacity admitting that these plants do pose a serious health risk to humans." The government would argue with this opinion - it is saying that the plants do NOT pose a serious health risk (and the government would presumably reply that the reason the power plants are so far from densely populated areas has nothing to do with any health risk - perhaps it's because they need a lot of land and "desnely populated areas" don't tend to have a lot of free land).

All of the stuff in the last set of parentheses is pure conjecture of course - I just said it to give you an idea of what's going on - there's a back-and-forth disagreement going on. The environmentalist first presents the claim made by the commission and then says why s/he thinks that claim is wrong.

Just remember that you can often have multiple claims in an argument. The conclusion is the chronologically last claim made by the author (or implied author) of the argument. Also, when you see an argument that starts with [position of some person + semi-colon] you will often have an argument that presents opposing sides of the issue. Make sure to pick out the conclusion of the person who is presenting the argument.

[Ajay]

Many thanks for making clearing my doubt. It all makes sense now.

[Guest]

Many thanks for clearing my doubt. It all makes sense now.

[rfernandez]

We're glad it was helpful!