The Ocean Cleanup Project
Specialists in communication are often hired to clean up problems created by unthoughtful messaging. While advocates dedicate significant amounts of time and energy promoting causes, they often struggle to clearly identify their logical positions. To further the problem, in light of clear arguments advocates commonly utilize informal fallacies to persuade their target audiences. These weaknesses tend to create easily avoidable communications crises. The first step is to identify the communicative problems.
For this assignment, identify a social issue you are personally interested in learning more about, advocating for the cause, or are against it, and identify fallacious reasoning.
In 750-1,000 words:
Research an advocate (individual or organization) that promotes a relevant social issue. Identify the organization and explain the relevancy of the social issue.
Show the steps you took to translate the position/argument you researched into a clear logical form by writing out the logical premises and conclusions from the material presented by the advocate.
Identify a minimum of five informal fallacies that are made by the advocate. Explain the fallacies themselves and how each functions.
At least two academic peer-reviewed sources are required for this paper.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
Social Fallacies
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The Ocean Cleanup Project
Plastics have been filling our oceans and they pose a threat to marine life. Coral reefs are dying and pictures of marine animals caught by adrift fishing nets and other plastics highlight the severity of the problem. The Ocean Cleanup is a startup founded by Boyan Slat that aims to clean plastics from our oceans. Under stewardship of Boyan Slat, the Ocean Cleanup has been developing technologies to achieve their goal.
Cleaning our oceans is a matter of priority because of the dangers it poses to their sustainability. If steps are not taken to stop channeling plastics into our oceans and also to remove that is floating in the oceans, the issue could lead to extinction of species and destruction of ocean ecological balance. Therefore, it is important that urgent steps are taken to avoid this catastrophe.
Research Steps
First, I identified the organization I wanted to study, and in this case, it was The Ocean Cleanup. I visited their website to get more information about their operations and how it hopes to solve the problem it had in hand. I researched about the CEO from articles on media houses and interviews he has given. I also studied the progress the organization has made on its project and what it hopes to accomplish in the coming years.
As I was researching about the company, I also reviewed sources published by other people and organizations about the issue. I wanted to have wide knowledge about the subject to equip me with necessary information to identify the fallacies the company has been spewing. All along, I was taking notes about the issue and noting the important statements the company has published.
Using the notes, I had made, I researched on the statement the company had released regarding their operations. I reviewed other articles by experts and in journals to understand the truthfulness of the statements. I tried to remain objective and only analyzed the facts to come to a logical conclusion on the objectives of The Ocean Cleanup company.
Finally, I concluded that the company’s objectives were noble and they were attempting a never tried before approach to cleaning the oceans. I also came to know that partly the information the company released to the public is partly to secure funding for the project which is in its infancy stages. Thirdly, the leadership of the startup ought to start scaling down the expectations and promises it has been making. their objective is momentous by any stretch of imagination (cleaning a 315 kms square of water) and only claiming that they would capture and bring ashore more than half of the plastic in the oceans is in five years using unproven technology is near impossible. While their efforts need to be lauded for attempting to clean the oceans, their promises and expectations about the project are unrealistic and should be toned down.
Informal fallacies made by the Ocean Cleanup
1 Extract 7,250,000,000KG of plastic from the oceans in just 5 years per gyre – this fallacy was published on company&rsquo...