【Flyer杀G作文组】1月18日 argument51

wagner1985UID: 2838595

ARGUMENT    NO.51

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. "


Comparing the recuperation time between two groups of patients, the author believes that the hypothesis that secondary infection may keep some patients from healing quickly after muscle strain is proved.However, the assumption relies on a series of fallacies in logic and there are still many problems during the whole process of the implication.

To begin with, the author believes the two groups of the patients are generally comparable, but actually they are not. First group of patients, which are chosen from a doctor majors in sports medicine, are quite different from the second which coming from a general physician. They are more likely to have no similar injuries at all, which violates a basic rule of comparison in statistics: all of external variables should be controlled as possible. In this case, the author should at least compare the groups of patients with similar characteristics. For that matter, we have enough reason to suspect that patients are originally more easily recuperate from the injury.

Even if we assume that the two groups have the same characteristics, the author does not provide enough information about the relation between the experiment and the hypothesis above. It seems that there is no certain correlation between the two, because we do not know whether any group of patients is related to the severe muscle strain. And we still do not know whether any of groups would be affected by the secondary infections. So the author cannot convince me of the certainty of the hypothesis, even if we neglect the fallacies mentioned in the paragraph above.

Nor can author justify the recommendation of the using the antibiotics on the basis of experiment. Because there are quite different characteristics the serious muscle strained patients and the light muscle strained. After all, if we neglect the problems mentioned above, the only persuasive argument of the experiment is about those who have severe muscle injured patient but not all of the muscle injured people. Thus there may not strong reasons for the recommendation.

In sum, the argument relies on a series of illogical implication chains and the negligence in detail. To strengthen the argument, at first, the author should choose the groups with similar characteristics in contrast. And the experimental groups should have strong relation with what the author want to prove, which means everyone of the patients which is selected to comparison must be seriously injured in muscles. Moreover, the more information about the relationship between the secondary infections and the severe injuries should be clarified by the author anyway.