argument35

alickenUID: 2845947

1010G欢迎拍文 7.20作业

TOPIC: ARGUMENT35 - The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia.

"Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. This rise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in our twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia."
WORDS: 430
TIME: 00:40:00
DATE: 2010-7-20 19:49:40

In the summary of a study on headaches, the writer predicts the number of headaches suffered by citizen of Mentia will continuously decline. To support his prediction, the writer cites some information about salicylates(S). And in these information, S seems can help to decline the number of headaches. But these information suffer many fawts so that it cannot support the prediction well.

First, the writer makes a assumption that if two agents are from the same chemical family, the function of them is same. It is truth that if two agents have similar structures, they may have some common attributes, this is the same as elements Fe, Co, Ni, they all have magnitivility. But since they are different objects, they must have some different attributes, for example the mass of Fe and Co are different. So the question is how the writer sure that S and asporon have same function in healing headaches? Maybe S does not have any effects in mitigating headaches. If the writer can give us some evidences to indicate S do well in trating headaches, I have nothing to say, but if he cannot, I have reason to suspect his prediction.

Second, in the summary the writer only says the reported number of headaches have declined, but he misses the information how they collected the data. Is the number of people who participated in the study are large enough? Perhaps only a small part of headache patients, for example only 100 patients, joined the study, although several years latter the number of patients who reported they still have headaches declined, this result cannot represent the whole condition of Mentia. Another case, although the study initially involve a lot of people, but after several years there are more patients who not included in this study control suffered from headache but researcher did not know about. For this reason, the result of this study is not plausible even if it have been studying for twenty years.

Third, the writer avers that if S can be used as flavor additives, headaches in Mentia will continuously decline. Let along we do not know whether over dose of S has some side effects on citizens, whether citizens will to eat this kind of flavor additives we do not know yet. correlative information is needed to sustain this point of view.

To sum up, the writer’s prediction is unwarranted for several reasons. More information is needed to make the writer’s assumption reasonable. And if he can give us more detail of the study, I believe his prediction will be accepted by more people.