argument 51

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题目：ARGUMENT51- The following appeared in a medical newsletter.

"Doctors have long suspected thatsecondary infections may keep some patients from healing quickly after severemuscle strain. This hypothesis has now been proved by preliminary results of astudy of two groups of patients. The first group of patients, all being treatedfor muscle injuries by Dr. Newland, a doctor who specializes in sportsmedicine, took antibiotics regularly throughout their treatment. Theirrecuperation time was, on average, 40 percent quicker than typically expected.Patients in the second group, all being treated by Dr. Alton, a generalphysician, were given sugar pills, although the patients believed they weretaking antibiotics. Their average recuperation time was not significantlyreduced. Therefore, all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be welladvised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment."
字数：514
用时：0:30:09
日期：2010-7-22

The argument above is well-presented, butnot well-reasoned. By quoting the data of the contrast experiment that the oneswho used antibiotics have a shorter recuperation time, the author get hisconclusion that the antibiotics are helpful to the muscle strain patients andrecommend all the muscle strain patients should use antibiotics, which seemslogical. However, with further scrutiny, we may find several threshold problemsin this argument.

To begin with, the argument does not lend astrong enough evidence to prove the hypothesis that the two groups of patientsare secondly infected after the muscle strain, while such assumption is thefoundation of this whole experiment. Without clear evidence to show that theexperiment are aiming at the patients who are secondly infected after themuscle injury, any results of this experiment are meaningless, and thus anyconclusion of this argument are untenable.

Even assuming that the two groups ofpatients are those who are secondly infected after the muscle strain, there isstill a threshold problem that the author's conclusion are mainly depends onthe results of the contrast experiment. Yet the author fails to inform us aboutthe age, the gender, and the health condition of these two different groups.Without such information, I'm not convinced that these two groups in thecontrast experiment are relatively comparable to show the real function of theantibiotics. Perhaps it's the difference in age of the two group thatcontributes to the different healing time, since we know, the younger one areoften stronger than the older ones, and they may recover more quickly from thesame injuries than the older ones.

Similarly, in this contrast experiment, thetwo groups are in the charge of the disparate doctors, which will greatlyundermine the credulity of the results of the experiment. In fact, it isactually the difference of the doctor that caused the distinction in therecuperation time, since one specialize in the sport injury may have a profoundunderstanding of the muscle strain and treat the patients more properly. Withoutruling out the other possible differences that may attribute to the results ofthe experiment, the author cannot confidently draw the conclusion that theantibiotics can shorten the recuperation time of the muscle strain patients whoare secondly infected.

Finally, the author make a hastyrecommendation that all the patients who are diagnosed with muscle strainedshould take the antibiotics in order to shorten their recuperation time. Evenif the antibiotics are helpful to the second infection after muscle injury,it's likely that the antibiotics are not suitable for all the muscle strain patients,for it may be only effective to the second infection.

To sum up, the conclusion and the recommendationin this argument are not well supported. To strengthen the credulity of theargument, the author should perform a more scientific experiment that candirectly show the function of the antibiotics, while ruling out all thepossible factors that may provide the same functions. And also, the authorshould do a further research about whether the antibiotics are helpful to allthe muscle strain diseases.