Argument 51 模考练习1

shcshc2010UID: 2876712

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

"Doctors have long suspected that secondary infections may keep some patients from healing quickly after severe muscle strain. This hypothesis has now been proved by preliminary results of a study of two groups of patients. The first group of patients, all being treated for muscle injuries by Dr. Newland, a doctor who specializes in sports medicine, took antibiotics regularly throughout their treatment. Their recuperation time was, on average, 40 percent quicker than typically expected. Patients in the second group, all being treated by Dr. Alton, a general physician, were given sugar pills, although the patients believed they were taking antibiotics. Their average recuperation time was not significantly reduced. Therefore, all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment."
WORDS: 421
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2010-8-17 上午 09:39:16

This argument recommends that all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment. This assumption is based on the assertion that secondary infections may keep some patients from healing quickly after severe muscle strain. To support this assertion, the author cites an experiment conducted between two groups of patients as evidence. However, closely scrutiny of the author's logic and reasoning would demonstrate that neither the reasons nor the evidence provide sufficient support for the conclusion. In sum, this argument suffers four serious logic flaws.

To begin with, the experiment was conducted in a fallacious way. The first group of patients was treated for muscle injuries by a doctor specializing sports medicine while the second group of patients were treated by a general physician. So it is very likely that the reason why the patients in the first group recovery faster is that the first doctor has more experience about sports medicine instead the usage of the antibiotics.

Secondly, the experiment cited by the author is too vague to be informative. Lacking information about the number of patients involved in the experiments, it is impossible to assess the validity of the experiment results. For example, if only six patients were involved in the experiment, namely, only three people in each group, the result that the patients in the first group healed faster may be only a coincidence. Because the argument provides no evidence to rule out this kind of possibilities, the results of the experiments are worthless as evidence for the conclusion that antibiotics helps to accelerate the healing process.

Thirdly, the result of the experiment relies on the assumption that the patients in two groups have same background conditions.
However, this is not clear in this argument whether the patients are the same. It is totally possible that the patients in the second group were more severely injured, or the patients in the first group were stronger in average that those in the second group. Therefore, the argument is unwarranted without ruling out such possibilities.

At last, the argument overlooks the side effects of antibiotics. Even if the antibiotics do help in healing, the recommendation of using antibiotics in treatment is still a wrong decision if the side effects of antibiotics overweigh the benefits of them.

All in all, the argument's author cannot justify his/ her recommendation of using antibiotics on the basis of the scant evidences provided in the report. To bolster the recommendation, the author needs to provide concrete evidence that secondary infections do keep some patients from healing quickly and more evidence that the benefit of antibiotics overweighs the side effects of them.