Argument 50 Arg 50lavender: effective remedy for insomnia
An ancient, traditional remedy for insomniathe scent of lavender flowershas now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored electronically. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. At the beginning of the second week, the volunteers discontinued their sleeping medication. During that week, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. Therefore, the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time.
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.
conclusion: lavender cures insomnia
what would happen in week 4 and the long term
how the lack of sleep in week 2 affect sleep in week 3
controlled room? what about going back to their own homes
placebo effect?
C1: An ancient, traditional remedy for insomniathe scent of lavender flowershas now been proved effective.
G1: In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored electronically.
G2: During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication.
G3: They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired.
G4: At the beginning of the second week, the volunteers discontinued their sleeping medication.
G5: During that week, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired.
G6: During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks.
C2: Therefore, the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time.
The grounds are sequentially and chronologically ordered.
Insomnia is a medical condition a great many people suffer from and wish for a quick cure. The conclusion that lavender remedy cures insomnia seems too good to be true. We need evidence about the long-term effect of the remedy, how the lack of sleep in week 2 might affect sleep in week 3 as well as how the experiment conditions might influence the volunteers sleep in order to evaluate the argument.
To begin with, the results suggested that volunteers seemed to sleep better in week 3 after using the pillow but we need more information about how well they sleep in week 4 and in the long term to decide if insomnia was cured. It is important to note that the volunteers suffered from chronic insomnia which might be alleviated temporarily by the remedy. Yet, the volunteers may have trouble sleeping again once the human bodies get used to levanda smell and the remedy becomes less effective. Therefore, we need to track the long-term development of the medical condition in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the remedy.
Another issue that deserves further investigation is whether the volunteers slept better in week 3 because of the remedy. Given the fact that they did not sleep very well in week 2 after terminating the use of sleeping pills, the volunteers may have slept soundly in week 3 simply because they felt too tired. After enjoying some sound sleep in week 3, their insomnia conditions may come back again. The point here is similar to the concern over long-term effect discussed in the previous paragraph. But the focus here is whether the remedy was actually effective during the three week experiment.
A final issue that we need to consider is how the controlled environment might contribute to the improvement of sleep quality. Since the volunteers have been sleeping in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored electronically, it is safe to assume that the environment is almost free from distraction that the volunteers are normally subject to. When they participate in the study, they may forget about all the problems that bother them in their daily life. In other words, the lab environment might help them sleep better. It would be helpful if the volunteers could continue using the remedy at home and more data could be collected about their sleep in a more natural environment. After all, the remedy would be useless if the volunteers can only sleep well in a controlled room.
The experiments with the lavander remedy are certainly very interesting and it is tempting to accept the conclusion that the remedy can cure insomnia. But we need more evidence about the issues discussed above in order to decide if the argument is reasonable.