TOPIC: ARGUMENT35 - The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia.
"Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. This rise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in our twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia."
WORDS: 449
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2010-7-20 16:52:58
Merely based on the unsounded assumptions and dubious evidence, the arguer draws a conclusion that there will be a steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by average citizen of Mentia. Although the conclusion seems convincing and appealing at the first glance, while, it is in fact ill-received after close scrutiny of the assumptions and evidences. In my point of view, the conclusion at least suffers from three logical flaws.
First and foremost, the study cited by the arguer opens to be questionable. The arguer fails to inform us how many people were studied and did respond, if the samples are insufficient, the result will undoubted to lack generalization. What's more twenty-year may be much shorter for drawing a conclusion, there might suffer a casual situation during these years. The arguer also fails to illustrate how the investigation was conducted, whether the questions are broad or whether the study is limited to a geographic location. Factors such as these may reverse the result and undermine the conclusion.
In the second place, even the study turns out to justify the conclusion. The argument remains to be questionable. The arguer fails to make a correlation between the usage of salicylates and the decline of headaches, while there is no guarantee to verify that it is the case. First of all, either evidence has been cited to show that salicylates have an effect on treating headaches even they were used to treat which maybe just the misleading of their useness, while in fact they are nothing with headaches. Secondly, even though salicylates indeed can treat headaches, it is also unwarranted to say that they can be absorbed from the foods or preservations, so even food-processing companies apply more salicylates, there is no guarantee to say the number of headaches is bound to decrease.
Finally and maybe the most importantly, the arguer fails to take some alternative possibilities into account. Actually, it is very likely that during the past twenty years, people's burden has been deducted, thus people can live with more leisure time rather than boring working, their headaches are sure to be declined, it is equally possible that people are more concerned about their health thus they eat more pills or 营养品，which have real medical effects on people. Lacking ruling out these alternative possibilities, the conclusion is highly suspicious.
In conclusion, the argument, while it seems to be logical at first, fails to substantiate strong and reliable evidence to support the speaker's claim. In order to make the conclusion much more acceptable and logical, the argument can be improved by providing some evidence more persuasive, reasoning more convincingly, and it can be further improved by taking every possible consideration into account.