ARGUMENT105 [Dancing in the Dark] 第10次作业 by virgo_zhang0910

virgo_zhang0910UID: 2380285

第十次作业: Argument105 The following appeared in a health newsletter.

"According to a recent study, people with many social ties report catching colds less often than do people with few social ties. Consequently, researchers conclude that having an active social life probably helps strengthen the immune system. The researchers note that catching a cold—one of a family of highly contagious viruses—gives the cold-sufferer temporary immunity to that virus in the future, but not to the many other related viruses. Merely being exposed to a new cold virus, however, is not enough for a person to catch a cold, since a strong immune system can successfully fight off some new viruses. Thus, in order to prevent catching a cold, people should strengthen their immune systems by becoming more active socially."


提纲：
1． 如何得出第一个结论，没有提供可靠地调查依据
2． 为什么可以提高免疫系统，即使第一个论点成立，也只是说感冒少，不代表免疫系统。
3． 最后一个论点，感觉前后没什么关系~~

In this argument, the arguer concludes that people should participate in more social activities to strengthen their immune system as well as prevent catching a cold. To support the conclusion, the arguer point out that according to a recent study, people with many social ties report catching cold less than do people with few social ties. In addition, the arguer reasons that one catch cold with one of a family of high contagious viruses would show a temporary immunity to that virus, but not to the many other related viruses. This argument suffers from several critical fallacies.

First of all, the arguer fails to present any information concerning the process of the recent study. How did they conduct this survey? By questionnaire, interview method or other ways since different forms of survey could reflect different level of specificities. How old are those informants？Are they all teenagers, adult, old men or a group containing different ages? This is extremely important when doing the survey related to health since different ages show quite different healthy conditions. Besides, how large was the survey carried out? One hundred people, One thousand, or even more？The more people were inquired, the more persuasive results we get and the more authenticity the survey show.

Another assumption in short of legitimacy is the casual relationship claimed between catching cold and strengthening the immune system. Even if we accept the first conclusion that having an active social life could prevent cold, how could we conclude that it can also strengthen the immune system? It is widely acknowledged that the function of immune system is not only related to prevent cold, but also other diseases, like headache, cancers, asthma and so on, and vice verse, it is too partial to easily get this conclusion that since it could prevent cold, it could also strengthen the immune system unless the arguer give more other details to prove it.

What further weakens the argument is that arguer mentioned that since a strong immune system can successfully fight off some new viruses, at the same time, catching a cold could have a temporary immunity to that virus but not other viruses; therefore, people should be more active socially. I think the correlation between this premise and the conclusion is too vague. There is not so strong cause-and-effect relationship. It is widely accepted that there are many other ways to strengthen immune system which conclude taking exercises, having rational diet and receiving vaccination, etc.

To sum up, the conclusion lacks credibility because the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to what the arguer maintains. To strengthen the argument, the arguer would provide more details to clarify the reasons why having an active social tie would strengthen the immune system or prevent suffering from cold.