argument145 【kito同主题写作第6期】

kito9695UID: 209685

TOPIC：ARGUMENT 145 –
A new study collected data that shows that people who snore are more likely to gain weight than are people who do not snore. It is well known that many people who snore also stop breathing frequently during the night for a few seconds, a condition called sleep apnea. The interruption of breathing wakes the person—often so briefly that the waking goes unnoticed—and can leave the person too tired during the day to exercise. Anyone who snores, therefore, should try to eat less than the average person and to exercise more.

WORDS：555          TIME：上午 12:30:00          DATE：2006-2-17

In the argument, the arguer hastily claims that people who snore should eat less and exercise more, based on the deduction that snorers wake up quite often at night to make themselves tired on the other day. A careful scrutiny reveals its several illogical points as follow, which make its conclusion rather unwarranted and dubious.

First and foremost, the arguer bases his/her conclusion on a wrong assumption that people who snore are the ones eating more and exercise less, which seems rather presumptuous. Perhaps some of the snoring people already eat less and do more exercise during the day-time, but they are still heavier than the average, should they eat even less or do more exercise than what they eat or do now? It may be useful for someone who snores, but not for all. Therefore, without further investigation about what people who snore now eat or exercise, the arguer’s conclusion for everyone who snores to eat less and exercise more seems rather hasty and presumptuous.

Second, the number of people who stop breathing frequently during the night provided in the argument is so vague that it lends little support to what the arguer claims. What is the exact number of "many"? 100? or 1000? If there are totally 1000 billion people who snore and only 100 of them have the habit of sleep apnea, will you still think it is a special characteristic that people who snore have? Unless more explicit and detailed information about the rate of sleep apnea among people who snore is given, we could not get the conclusion in haste.

In addition, the conclusion that anyone who snores should try to eat less than average person and exercise more is open to doubt. On the one hand, as people are different in their body conditions, as well as obesity can result from lots of reasons, such as heredity or something else, the obesity of people who snore may cause by other factors rather than less exercise related to snoring; on the other hand, even if their obesity are attribute to their snoring, there is the possibility that less food and more exercise can still not stop them from being heavier and heavier. And also this action may undermine their healthy body, as the last night sleep apnea may make them tired. So, any scenarios mentioned above, in true, will serve to undermine the credibility of the argument.

Finally, before I come to my conclusion, I would like to point another flaw in the argument. The arguer asserts that it is snoring that lead to peoples' obesity, however conversely, maybe it is because of obesity, which will easily make people snoring. As we all know, obese people are more likely to be tired, and they may thus easy to snore during the night. In that case, the arguer could not assert that people who snore should eat less and exercise more to keep away from obesity.

All in all, the argument is not cogent as it stands. Since the assumption and deduction it is based on are untenable, thus lends little sport to what the arguer claims in fact. To make it logically accepted, the arguer should first investigate to know whether people who snore are ones eating more but exercising less and also take other possible factors which may influence people’s obesity into account.

谢谢拍~:handshake

[ 本帖最后由 kito9695 于 2006-2-17 11:02 编辑 ]