The following appeared in a memorandum written by the vice president of Health

Naturally, a small but expanding chain of stores selling health food and other
health-related products.

"Our previous experience has been that our stores are most profitable in areas
where residents are highly concerned with leading healthy lives. We should
therefore build one of our new stores in Plainsville, which clearly has many such
residents. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise
equipment are at all-time highs. The local health club, which nearly closed five
years ago due to lack of business, has more members than ever, and the weight-
training and aerobics classes are always full. We can even anticipate a new
generation of customers: Plainsville's schoolchildren are required to participate
in a program called Fitness for Life, which emphasizes the benefits of regular
exercise at an early age."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate
the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

ans:
The argument concludes that the vice president of Health Nturally should
construct their new chain of stores in plainsvillae as the residents of that area
are more conscious about their health which is a positive point for business owner-
their past experience shows health conscious people are likely to buy health
related product. The evidence cited to support this conclusion includes report of
merchants, number of members registered to local health club, and involvement of
children in fitness programs. However, the premises cited are unable to justify or
strengthen the weak conclusion. The reasons why the argument is rendered
inconclusive includes fallacious assumption, incorrect relationship cited,
ignorance of other important factors and problem in research data cited which are
discussed in detail below.
First of all, the argument fallaciously assumes that the increasing
number of members in local fitness club also indicates their increasing concern
about health related products. However it may not be true. People in that area
might be so busy in their job that they have gain overweight because of which they
may have administred in health clubs or Mayor of that area might have implemented
some rules about the body weight due to which they might be seen buying more
running shoes and health related equipments. Without ruling out these factors we
cannot conclude that people will likely be attracted towards healthy foods.

Secondly, the argument cites incorrect relationship between its past

serving areas where its business gets profited with this new area. The people in
new area might themselves be aware of healthy foods and they might be preparing
their owns or their may be pleanthy of helathy food stores in plains villae or
people in areas where it aquired many profits might be pleagued by intense health
problems so that they have no choice beside accepting healthy products. These
factors invalidates the justification of argument being profitable.

Thirdly, the arguments ignores other important factors that might have
altered the conclusion of an argument in a different way. As it is entirely
possible that the rent in plainsvillare where people are more conscious, aware,
literate might be exceptionally high that the opening of new resturants with little
hope of being profitable might be counterproductive. Also, as more people are
involved in health clubs and are aware about fitness exercises they may feel that
healthy food is not required at all as they can balance consumption of baked food
by doing exercises.

Hence the conclusion of the argument that it will be profutable in a

area where people are more involvement in health clubs and fitness is ill supported
by the premises cited. The main reasons for the incoherencies in the argument
includes falacious assumption, incorrect relationships, ignorance of other
important factors and problem in data cited. However, the argument can be
strengthened to some extent by showing pragmatic evidences showing how many people
are actually aware of their health-the owner should conduct survey of the area
before moving. In spite of the scope of the improvement, the argument as written is
incohesive, illogical and completely inconclusive.