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.



At first, it might seem logical to agree with the Dr. Karp’s argument but on closer inspection we can see that this argument is clearly flawed in various aspects. Dr. Karp believes in his interview-based approach to be the best method of drawing observations about the island of Tertia and claims his research to be more accurate than that of Dr. Field. According to me, there has to be clearer and more precise evidence on the approach followed by Dr. Karp and his team.
Firstly, it has to be given consideration that Dr. Fields observations about the island of Tertia was made two decades ago and Dr. Karp's investigations according to the report was conducted recently. There is a huge time gap between the two investigations and there is a possibility that things might have changed in these twenty years. There might be significant changes in upbringing of the children with less interference from the society they live in in the past two decades.

Secondly, the observations of Dr. Field were based on the study of island of Tertia but as per the argument, Dr. Karp conducted a research on a group of islands that includes Tertia. We have no idea about how the conclusions are made by Dr. Karp. Are they influenced by people of other group of islands and what percentage of people in Tertia have agreed with the point that children in Tertia are more influenced by their parents. Therefore, I believe that more specific evidence needs to be given about the area of study which will give us a better understanding of the behavior of children of Tertia.

Thirdly, there is no clear indication in the argument on what basis does Dr. Karp claims that interview centered method is better than observation centered method. In the article, the questions pertaining to Dr. Karp's interview has not been mentioned in the article. Similarly, there is no clear idea about what kind of people were involved in the interview.

Moreover, Dr. Field himself conducted his research on the influence of parents and society on the upbringing of the children in Tertia . He visited the island of Tertia to do his research and his conclusions were based on his own observations. In Dr. Karp's research, his graduate students conducted the interviews and thereby, errors can occur in this case, as interviews are not conducted directly by Dr. Karp. There is a possibility that the graduate students might have misinterpreted the situation. therefore a clear evidence regarding the subjects and place of study needs to be presented. Furthermore, the questions that were asked in the interview should be illustrated with responses from the subjects to give a more lucid explanation on the research conducted by the students.

Clearly, the argument is flawed in various aspects and additional evidence needs to be presented for better understanding of the research. We need to know about the changes happened over the past 20 years and what demography was involved in the investigation and whether they were taken into consideration during the research. There has to be evidence regarding the questions and responses in the interviews conducted and they have to be investigated more carefully in Dr. Karp's case as it was conducted by his graduate students.