argument53 [OB小组] 第11次作业 melatonin&shyness

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题目：ARGUMENT53 - Thirteen years ago, researchers studied a group of 25 infants who showed signs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli such as an unusual odor or a tape recording of an unknown voice. They discovered that these infants were more likely than other infants to have been conceived in early autumn, a time when their mothers' production of melatonin-a hormone known to affect some brain functions-would naturally increase in response to decreased daylight. In a follow-up study conducted earlier this year, more than half of these children-now teenagers-who had shown signs of distress identified themselves as shy. Clearly, increased levels of melatonin before birth cause shyness during infancy and this shyness continues into later life.
字数：357          用时：00:35:00          日期：2007-7-24 上午 12:39:27
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In this argument, the author concludes that increaed levels of melatonin before birth lead to shyness during infancy and continues into later life. To support this conclusion, the author claims that a group of 25 infants showed signs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli are mostly conceived in early autumn, when their mothers' production of melatonin would naturally increase in response of decreased daylight. And when they grow up, most of them consider themselves to be shy. However, this argument contains several facets that are questionable.

First of all, there's no clear relationship between melatonin and the cause of shyness. The author doesn't provide us any science research on this kind of hormone so that we don't even know the function of the hormone. Although he mentions that it'll affect some brain functions, we still don't know whether the affection is on the mother or the infant. In this way, the support from melatonin becomes pale.

Moreover, the author mentions a fellow-up study conducted earlier this year, which shows more than half of these children-now teenagers consider themselves to be shy. However, on one hand the author doesn't provide any evidence to show that it's because the teenagers are shy as a result of their mild distress when they're infants. Thus, the shyness cannot be explained as a developed symptom of mild distress. On the other hand, a person's characteristic may be affected by many things such as people around him, educational condition, the country he's in and so forth. All these help to develop one's characteristic.

In addition, even though most of the children-now teenagers are shy at the moment, there's no evidence to show that they'll still be shy in their later life. We don't know what kind of later life they will live, in this way, it's not appropriate to make such a assumption.

To sum up, the conclusion lacks of credibility. Regardless of who the author is, he or she has overlooked or chosen to ignore many aspects of his or her conclusion. In order to strengthen the conclusion, the author need to provide more evidences about the above mentioned possibilities.