ARGUMENT: The Trash-Site Safety Council has recently conducted a statewide study of possible harmful effects of garbage sites on the health of people living near the sites. A total of five sites and 300 people were examined. The study revealed, on average

In the argument, the council came to a conclusion that the system of garbage sites does not pose any noticeable danger for the health of people living near the sites. The conclusion is based on the reason that the correlation between the distance between the sites and people's houses seems to be small; furthermore, the size of the sites does not correlate with the rate of health issues at all. However, there are a number of statistical and logical flaws in the topic which may undermine author's authority and, additionally, it is utterly needed to provide readers with more details of the study to demonstrate that it has been conducted properly.

To begin with, since the research has been statewide, it requires mentioning the total number of researched categories to show readers that, statistically, enough information was analyzed, but they mentioned only absolute numbers about 5 sites and 300 people living near them. Possibly, if the numbers had been published more carefully, the statistical base would be less questionable. For instance, it would have been better to strengthen the report with exact number including: a certain percent of the sites and a certain number of citizens living near them, exact distances to the houses, and sizes of the sizes.
In addition, only unexplained health problems were studied, also no evidences confirming that explained ones were not connected with the trash dumps have been provided. Obviously, explained health issues could have been linked to the trash sites too, but were not been mentioned in any way, so it may look like not enough cases were analyzed. In order to be complete and to avoid overlooking important facts, the study must have taken into consideration all relevant circumstances and proofs confirming that the rest were not relevant.

There are also several logical flaws, which may look a bit too inadequate. For example, the author states that people lived near the largest sites used to have higher numbers of health problems, but right after this statement they mention that there was no correlation between the size of the sites and the health issues, which directly opposed the first part of the statement. Consequently, such a controversy may be a sign of a number of inaccuracies made during the research, so they must be addressed properly before any publications of final decisions.

Finally, the council made a conclusion that there were no need to limit the site of trash dumps or the number of households existing in researched areas, despite possible errors in the research: although the connection between health problems and garbage sites were claimed, they said it did not pose a significant danger. However, the conclusion has been made without mentioning any real numbers, so it must be obvious that the more houses are built around the sites, the more people would have health concerns, so the “insignificance” mentioned in the argument may transform to a truly big number of people's problems.

To sum up, the writer's argument is full of cause-effect and statistical inaccuracies, which may weaken the conclusion made, because not enough factual data has been mentioned. While something claimed as “true”, it must be supported by real data, because decisions made without proper grounds may lead to catastrophic consequences, especially when it comes to people's health.