Revised GRE Argumet 21. Please rate it and thanks a lot.

[LouisLin]

21. The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.

"Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and thus that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures."

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.

Dr. Karp who is an anthropologist and his student used interview-centered research method to understand child-rearing style of island of Tertia and culture of that. Besides, he and his students’ research outcome is that children in Tertia island talked about their biological parents more than other adults while these children were interviewed by Dr. Karp research team. Therefore, Dr. Karp advocated that the former research Dr. Field’s research result which is children in island of Tertia were raised not by their own biological parents but by an entire village is invalid and Dr. Field’s research method called observation-centered approach is obsolete. In contrast, his research outcome is valid and his research method called interview-centered approach is able to understanding child-rearing traditions of island of Tertia and cultures of that accurately. Dr. Karp’s argument seems sound apparently. However, after think over deliberately, I think Dr. Karp’s argument is not cogent enough. In the following paragraphs, I will point out several fallacies of this argument as follows.

To begin with, Dr. Karp didn’t show us his interview-questions and questionnaires; therefore, we also don’t evaluate his research outcome and prove it valid or invalid. It is possible that children are reared by an entire village and children are curious at their biological parents so that their talked about their biological parents more. Nevertheless, these children regard all adults in Tertia village are ordinary so that they talk those less. In addition, Dr. Karp didn’t tell us how much time children in Tertia Village spent on talking about their biological parent and other adults. Perhaps children in Tertia Village spent more time on talking about their biological parent; likewise they also spent a lot of time on talking about other adults. That is to say, if children in Tertia village didn’t spend much more time on talking about their biological parents rather than other adults, Dr. Karp’s inference that children were reared by their biological parents is totally not convincing enough.

Moreover, according to American psychologist Elton Mayo’s “Hawthorne Effect” theory, people under the observation or interview will follow observers or interviewers’ anticipation to do something or answer the questions which questioner want. As so many academic researchers know, interview research method is more incapable of understand the real situation than observation approach because people always don’t know they are under observation but they already know they are tested and observed under interview conservation. In other words, it is possible that children in Tertia village just wanted to satisfy Dr. Karp and his students and answered the question which Dr. Karp wanted in order to follow Dr. Karp’s anticipation. Thus, Dr. Karp and his research team perhaps got an invalid research outcome and unable to prove their research method which is called interview approach is more appropriate and better than observation approach that was used by former notable anthropologist, Dr. Field.

Furthermore, even though children talked much more about their biological parent under the interview conservation, these interview conservation results are unable to represent the reality that children in Tertia village are nursed by their biological parents because there is no direct causal relationship between interview conservation outcome and child-rearing tradition in island of Tertia. To illuminate the above statement, due to accidental causes like children in Tertia village regarded talking their biological parents as funny affair so that they talked much more in one interview conservation. Besides, it is possible that one child talked a little more about his or her biological parents occasionally and leaded so many children talking about their biological parents because of “bandwagon effect” which are called by political scholars or “conformity” which are called by psychologists. Therefore, if Dr. Karp tried to convince us, he should provide more concrete evidences to us rather than vague inferences.

To sum up, the research method “interview approach” seems inappropriate in investigating child-raising tradition in island of Tertia and probably got a meaningless research outcome that is incapable of proving and inferring anything. In addition, Dr. Karp’s argument over-inferred because his argument was short of direct relationship between his research outcome and child-raising tradition of Tertia village. Lethally, Dr. Karp made a hasty and bold conclusion that interview approach is better than observation approach. On the basis of these fatal fallacies which I presented above, Dr. Karp’s argument is entirely not compelling.