【真心讨教】ARGU 187习作求拍

有大非眠UID: 3003486

TOPIC: ARGUMENT187 - The following appeared as part of an article in a health magazine.
"A new discovery warrants a drastic change in the diets of people living in the United States. Two scientists have recently suggested that omega -3 fatty acids (found in some fish and fish oils) play a key role in mental health. Our ancestors, who ate less saturated fat and more polyunsaturated fat, including omega -3 fatty acids, were much less likely to suffer from depression than we are today. Moreover, modern societies-such as those in Japan and Taiwan-that consume large quantities of fish report depression rates lower than that in the United States. Given this link between omega -3 fatty acids and depression, it is important for all people in the United States to increase their consumption of fish in order to prevent depression."
WORDS: 394          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2011/2/5 23:32:12
The speaker asserts that as omega-3 is important to mental health, it is necessary for all people in the United States to eat more fish in order to prevent depression. However, this argument fails to give more specific information relevant to the effect of omega-3, the differences between the United States and Japan, Taiwan, which result in major logical fallacies.
To begin with, without any detail demonstration about the relation between omega-3 and the possibility of suffering from depression, the argument appears unconvincing. The arguer only said in the passage that their ancestors who might have eaten more omega-3 were less likely than us to get depression. However, isn't it possible  that there are other explanations for the two? It is possible that the depression rate is caused by other kinds of polyunsaturated fat, of which omega-3 is only one of the kind. Also, it's plausible that there are no relation at all between omega-3 and depression. It can be assumed that the ancestors were living in a totally different society as we are now, and they suffer less from the pressure given by work, family and social networking, which is the main reason for depression.
To move on, the speaker made a wrong comparison between some Asian countries like Japan and Taiwan, with the United States. By only comparing the consumption of fish and depression rates, the conclusion given that people in the United States should eat more fish to prevent depression is unacceptable. First of all, Japan and Taiwan are both island countries, which means large quantities of fish is easily acquirable. But the United States, with only few states on the coasts, can't satisfy all of its people to have large quantities of fish. Second of all, is more fish the only explanation to the lower rate of depression?  Apparently the arguer ignored the differences of important factors like society, custom, education system and so on,  that he falsely gave the conclusion.
Based on these reasons, that detail information are not provided, I find this argument unsubstantiated. In order to make the argument more trustworthy, the arguer should focus more on demonstrating the relation between omega-3 and depression, and large quantities of fish and lower rates of suffering, to suggest that there are definate evidence that if all people in the United States
consume more fish, the depression rate will decrease.