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TOPIC: ARGUMENT51 - The following appeared in a medical newsletter.
"Doctors have long suspected that secondary infections may keep some patients from healing quickly after severe muscle strain. This hypothesis has now been proved by preliminary results of a study of two groups of patients. The first group of patients, all being treated for muscle injuries by Dr. Newland, a doctor who specializes in sports medicine, took antibiotics regularly throughout their treatment. Their recuperation time was, on average, 40 percent quicker than typically expected. Patients in the second group, all being treated by Dr. Alton, a general physician, were given sugar pills, although the patients believed they were taking antibiotics. Their average recuperation time was not significantly reduced. Therefore, all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment."
WORDS: 418 TIME: 00:27:42 DATE: 2007-7-22 16:50:15
By considering the result of the study of the two groups of patients, the arguer arrives the conclusion that all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment. Ostensibly reasonable the argument may seem, it still suffer from several flaws.
In the first place, the reason why antibiotics can reduce the recuperation time is that antibiotics can prevent patients from secondary infections, which may impede some patients to recover, as the arguer claims. In other words, if a muscle injury patient would not get secondary infections, antibiotics would not be of help to the patient, either. However, the arguer provides no information, just think subjectively, that all the patient who are diagnosed with muscle strain would suffer from secondary infection.
In the second place, even assuming that all the muscle strain patients would suffer from secondary infection, the argument still relies on an additional unconvincing survey. The survey does not give out the information about the two groups of patients in details, such as age, body situation, the degree of the ailment, etc. Therefore, I have enough reasons to doubt that all the patients in the first group are strong youths, whose muscle are injured lightly, and all the patients in the second group are weak elders, who suffer from severe muscle strain. If it is the case, the survey accounts to nothing. Moreover, the doctors of the two groups are different, which might also have a remarkable influence on the result. Doctors who specialize in sports medicine are surely more suitable and superior to general physicians in respect that healing patient suffering from severe muscle strain. And, the sugar pills, giving to the second group of patients, are not demonstrated to have no effects on the ailment. Taking all factors mentioned above into consideration, the survey is too vague to demonstrate anything.
In the third place, only basing on this vague survey, the generalization that all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment is too rash. No investigation indicates that the antibiotics have no side effect on the patients. What if the abuse of antibiotics might cause another kind of illness?
In sum, the argument is based on such a vague survey and some ungrounded hypothesis of the arguer, which makes its logic vulnerable to doubt. To better it, a more convincing survey and other surveys about the side effect of the antibiotics should be carried out.
[ 本帖最后由 zhoumaye425 于 2007-7-23 09:03 编辑 ] |
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