Examining models

REFUTATION ARGUMENT

An important subgenre of arguments is the refutation, a piece that takes apart someone else’s claims and sometimes seeks to correct them. In the following example of this engaging but prickly form, Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001), explains where and how an influential environmental study went awry and the consequences of what he perceives as its errors. Needless to say, a refutation is, itself, an argument that deserves careful scrutiny.

Reading the Genre