本帖最后由 neverjust 于 2010-7-22 21:27 编辑
TOPIC: ARGUMENT57 - The following appeared in a newsletter on nutrition and health.
"Although the multimineral Zorba pill was designed as a simple dietary supplement, a study of first-time ulcer patients who took Zorba suggests that Zorba actually helps prevent ulcers. The study showed that only 25 percent of those ulcer patients who took Zorba under a doctor's direction developed new ulcers, compared to a 75 percent recurrence rate among ulcer patients who did not take Zorba. Clearly, then, Zorba will be highly effective in preventing recurrent ulcers and if health experts inform the general public of this fact, many first-time ulcers can be prevented as well."
WORDS: 383
The argument presented above suffered from several flaws. The author's conclusion that Zorba (Z) pill can be highly effective in preventing recurrent ulcers is ridiculous. But firstly, the study the author said cast doubt on it, and he did not supply any evidence to prove Z was effective on preventing ulcers. What’s more, He fails to consider the differences between the two groups of patients. Let me discuss it below.
To begin with, the study provided by author was open to doubt. The author did not supply all information about those patients who have taken Z, like what kind of ulcer they have got, how serious the ulcer is etc. Thus we could not evaluate whether those patients who attended the study are representative. So the author should not make the summarization too hasten.
Secondly, no evidence was showed to prove that Z is the reason that makes those patients doesn’t developed new ulcers any more. There may be some alternative explanations were ignored by the author. It may due to the doctor's treatment. It is possible that those patients have got other medicine to cure the ulcer. What's more, maybe some kinds of ulcer are just healed naturally, and by the protection method which taken by the patients, the ulcer have got no chance to come again. So he just fail to establish a casual relationship between taking Z and no new ulcers were developed again.
Last but not the least, there may be some differences other than taking Z between the patients who took the pills and the ones did not were ignored by author. From the argument we know the patients who got Z because of doctor’s directions. And maybe the doctor’s description included some medicine and the function of preventing ulcer was made by the mixture of several kinds of medicine. In addition, the people who did get the ulcer again may result from some other reason, like eat some other medicine, or have a inappropriate life style, or live in an environment which was more likely to make people get ulcers. So just conclude the situation by the unreliable study was invalid.
In sum, this argument is unpersuasive, to strengthen it, the author should check more information and analyze the whole situation carefully, then make the final summarization. | 
发表于 2010-7-22 21:16:40
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