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Argument53 第5篇
------摘要------
作者:寄托4人组 共用时间:35分26秒 394 words
从2005年7月24日9时22分到2005年7月24日9时35分【这个软件最近好像总出bug】
------题目------
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.
------正文------
By appealing to a study conducted 13 years ago and a follow-up study this year, the author in this argument tries to convince readers that it is increased levels of melatonin before birth that cause shyness both during infancy and later life. Although this argument does bear some merits, yet a close scrutiny will reveal that there are several critical flaws that undermine its validity.
To begin with, the validity of the study which was conducted 13 years ago is open to question. First, the author does not offer information about whether showing sighs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli is common among infants or not. If it is just a typical responsive for most infants, then the study has no special value. Second, even granted it is abnormal, the data of 25 infants is far from representative. We know nothing about how those 25 infants were selected, whether they were randomly chosen from shy infants or chosen for their special characters. It is possible, for example, all these children happen to be born in autumn. Even they were chosen according to scientific methods, only 25 infants is such a small number that is hardly representative.
Even granted the study is reliable, it does not necessarily follow that it is the increase of mothers' melatonin that cause their infants' shyness. The author only vaguely mention that melatonin is known to affect some brain function; yet whether it affects mothers' brains or infants' brains is unclear. It is highly possible that it has nothing to do with infants. Even if it does have influence on infants' brains, it still might not be the case that melatonin is responsible for infants' shyness. Maybe it impacts infants on all other ways expect this. Thus, the author commits a fallacy of concurrence and fails to prove the causal relationship between these two events.
Moreover, even accepted that mother's melatonin results in their infants' shyness, it does not imply that this chemical account for the shyness of their later life. First, perhaps it is quite among teenagers that half of them are shy, thus it is nothing special for more than half of these identified children to be still shy nowadays. Second, even if this phenomenon is abnormal, there might be other reasons cause their shyness. For instance, maybe their family environment makes them be shy. Perhaps their parents always told them that the researchers believe they will be shy in future due to a chemical, and this leads to their shyness while melatonin actually no longer impacts them. If this is the case, the causal relationship between melatonin and continuous shyness is not sound.
In sum, the argument is not very persuasive as it stands. To strengthen it, the author would have to provide more evidence to prove the validity and representativeness of the study, and prove that melatonin really accounts for these children's shyness both during their infancy and later life.
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