=七月流火=小组第3次小组作业 Argument167 by lghscu

lghscuUID: 2552043

TOPIC: ARGUMENT167 - A folk remedy* for insomnia, the scent in lavender flowers, has 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. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. During the second week, the volunteers discontinued their medication. As a result, 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. This shows that over a short period of time lavender cures insomnia.

*A folk remedy is usually a plant-based form of treatment common to traditional forms of medicine, ones that developed before the advent of modern medical services and technology.
WORDS: 338+120=458
TIME: 00:41:00
DATE: 2009-9-1 22:32:15

The argument for asserting that lavender has an effective influence on the curing of insomnia over a short period of time, based on a survey result derived from 30 test-takers’ feelings within three weeks, seems logical. However, a scrutiny of the survey reveals that this argument suffers several flaws as follows.

In the first place, the author fails to give an explicit definition of insomnia. One of the main charateristics of insomnia is the sleep latency, which is not mentioned in the argument. It is a common sense that patient with insomnia always suffers a longer sleep latency than does the normal one. However, in the argument, only information about whether test-takers slept soundly and how they felt after wakening up is provided during the period of three weeks, which to some extent is irrelavent to how long these volunteers spent on getting to sleep. Perhaps these people took a short time to fall asleep, if it is true, they might not suffer insomnia at all. Therefore, more information concerning the sleep latency should be provided to make the survey more convincing.

In the second place, the author is failing to consider other possible alternative explanations for the causes of the third week's longer and more soundly sleep. It might be the case that the usual sleeping medication taken during the first week still has effect on the test-takers even there is a time interval of one week and consequently causes the state as presented above. It also might be the case that the tiredness due to not enough sleep during the previous two weeks and the gradual familarity with the controlled enviroment make contribution to the result of the third week. In addition, being monitored when sleeping could affect the sleep quality. Only by ruling out such possible caues can the results that the scent in lavender flowers could cure insomnia would be led more sufficient support to.

Last but not least, a lack of control group when the survey was conducted reduces the credibility of the survey. As a medical experiment, a control group is always needed, especially in such a case where the objective attitudes play a vital in assessing the effect of lavender on insomnia. Consider the possibility that the test-takers might respond with an expected answer which is making the experiment less scientific and more suspicious. Therefore, to ensure the experiment to be more scientific and more valuable, a control group of people with the same physical conditions should be added.

To sum up, based on the discussions mentioned above, the author’s conclusion that lavender could contribute to curing insomnia within a short time is unconvincing. The conclusion would be improved by further experiment with a control group and with more scientific ananlysis.