Argument 167恳请指点。。谢谢。。

jasminejzy49UID: 2760913

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: 453
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2010-3-6 1:21:40

By citing a study's process of curing insomnia, the arguer concluded that lavender cures insomnia. At first glance, the argument seems to be well-presented and somewhat reasonable, however, through close scrutiny of the argument reveals it suffers from several logic fallacies which should be pointed out.

The threshold problem with the argument is that we find little sign of such procedure for random sampling. If there is no sufficient number of sample, the study could hardly represent people worldwide. In addition, whether the study 30 people with chronic insomnia in the study could have the same effect while curing with lavender with the irritable patients is open to doubt.

The second problem which weakens the logic of the argument is that the arguer mixed the conception of insomnia and whether the patients sleep soundly. As far as I know, insomnia is that people cannot easily fall asleep while having nothing to do with whether they sleep soundly.

Third, we have no ideas of other evidence of what have they been doing during the daytime, whether their diet and their exercise have changed, or if there are something else which could contribute to the result. Whichever hypothesis could affect the result of the conclusion.

Before I reach to my conclusion, it is necessary to point out that without the evidence of the detailed situation of how they felt when waken up during the third week, we can not have a comparison with the former 2 weeks’ situation so that the survey is incompleted to have a conclusion. It is highly possible that just because the patients did not sleep well during the second week, which cause them even more tired during the third week and therefore sleeping soundly. What’ more, it is probably that first week the volunteers could not get used to the new sleeping place which causes them insomnia. After sleeping in the same place for 2 weeks, they totally accepted it and got back to the normal state of sleeping in the third week.

Besides, take it for granted that scent in lavender works, we are not informed with how the volunteers sleep without lavender-scented pillows. If they could not sleep well, which may means that lavender can not effect a radical cure. Without a follow-up study to show whether the treatment works and if they have some side- effects, the effectiveness of the lavender is open to doubt.

In sum, to make the argument more sound and invulnerable, the arguer should provide more details of the study, such as how long will it take for them to fall asleep, how they felt when they wakened during the third week and so on. Without further illustration, the arguer's conclusion is arbitrary.