The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants
"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that an average of 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter and to increase profitability, the Happy Pancake house should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."
What specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument?
In this argument, the manager suggests that most Happy Pancake House restaurants should replace butter to margarine to save cost, as most customer either cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. However, several evidences are needed to support this argument.
When we focus on the data, 98 percent of customers are happy with the change, several questions should be acknowledged. How long have the change been? Is there any notice about the change? Otherwise, the customers may just consider it as an accident. Secondary, how many customers are involved in this research? The result is not reliable and persuasive if there are only 100 subjects. Third, how to evaluate 'happy'? 98% of customers didn't complain is not equal to 98% of customers are happy with the change. Most customers may just too lazy to complain about such a small unsatisfaction. The author had better to provide evidences to prove that a serious research has been made.
If the author want to use the evidence that customers do not complain about be given margarine instead when they ask for butter to support the conclusion that customers cannot distinguish butter and margarine or they use 'butter' for butter and margarine, the author should provide evidences to exclude the effect from the servers. For example, when the customer ask for butter, the server can give margarine and without notification. Moreover, the servers may say 'Sorry, we only have margarine now' instead of 'We don't provide butter anymore'. In this case, the customers may only accept this incident but not the change. Furthermore, it is possible that the customer is really ask for butter and notice that he or she is given margarine, but not mind to eat margarine instead of butter. Extra evidences are also required to exclude this possibility.
At the end, in the suggestion that change butter to margarine can increase profits, more evidences about the cost can increase persuasion, such as comparing expense of purchasing butter and purchasing margarine. A small minority revenue gap is not worthy to give the change.
In conclusion, the argument is not strong enough as it lacks of details. Details of the research, the servers' behaviour and the changing in revenue are essential evidences for evaluating the argument.
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