Argument53 【米国有米】小组 第十次作业

bluecathyUID: 2231215

[题目]：
Thirteen years ago, researchers studied a group of 25 infants who showed signs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli such as an unusual odor or a tape recording of an unknown voice. They discovered that these infants were more likely than other infants to have been conceived in early autumn, a time when their mothers' production of melatonin-a hormone known to affect some brain functions-would naturally increase in response to decreased daylight. In a follow-up study conducted earlier this year, more than half of these children-now teenagers-who had shown signs of distress identified themselves as shy. Clearly, increased levels of melatonin before birth cause shyness during infancy and this shyness continues into later life.

[提纲]：
1.没有任何科学根据说明melatonin确实会导致孩子的害羞性格。尽管melatonin确实是一种会影响脑部的激素，但是作者并没有说明是影响婴儿的脑部还是孕妇的脑部。
2.跟踪研究表示孩子们的性格发生变化也不可信。小孩子受到刺激而产生情绪变化很正常，我们无法确认是害羞还是因为刺激而产生的紧张或者痛苦。
3.孩子的性格变化有很多因素。在我们不清楚参与研究的孩子的具体情况及生活背景的情况下不能确定就是这种激素的作用。
汗！本来还只贴了文章，后来怕自己写的太烂，你看不明白，又重新写了一遍提纲……

[正文]：
Before making a decision that the increased levels of melatonin before children were born cause shyness in their childhood and make the shyness continue later years, the evidence given in the argument should be reflected carefully, for the arguer's reasons have something doubtful.

To begin with, one main problem with this argument is that the arguer provides no evidence that melatonin will lead to children's shyness. There is not any evidence that melatonin which has something with shyness of children had been testified due to science research or science report. The arguer fails to offer what melatonin is and what kind of effect it would make to human being, even whether melatonin will have any effect on children's character. Without these science data, the arguer's further assumption that melatonin will continue to influence children is certainly unwarranted. Furthermore, although melatonin is one kind of hormone which is known to affect some brain function, the arguer doesn't clearly demonstrate that it will affect infant's brain rather than mother's brain. If it doesn't have anything with infant's brain, how could melatonin influence children's character in their later life?

Secondly, another problem with this argument is that the research about the change of children is logical unreliable. The arguer draws the very conclusion due to a research and its fellow-up study that more than half of the group of 25 infants, who showed signs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli, had continued being shy in later years. As we all know, infants are always sensitive of external stimulus, if the arguer doesn't provide any evidence that all the mild distress shown by infants were only because of shyness, we couldn't rule out the possibility that the wild distress may also be physical discomfort caused by unknown stimulus.

Moreover, it is arbitrary for the arguer to conclude that the shyness caused by melatonin continues into children's later life. It is widely acknowledged that a person's character may be shaped a great many reasons. Besides gene factor, one's life circumstance and growing experience will also affect one's character. And the arguer fails to provide any evidence about life circumstances of these different children in the fellow-up study, so we couldn't rule out the effect caused by life circumstance to these children's shyness or character.

To sum up, it is unconvincing that melatonin will lead to children's shyness. If the arguer intends to make the conclusion more convincing, he should offer more detailed data about the research and its fellow-up study, and make a further demonstration that what kind of effect melatonin will make on the infants. All in all, the arguer should reflect deeply and widely before making final conclusion.

[ 本帖最后由 bluecathy 于 2007-1-20 12:52 编辑 ]

wizjoUID: 2175360

看了lz的几篇文章，觉得lz很有水平哦~ 起码在我之上...这篇argu写得挺好，反正我是没发现什么严重错误，我们的视点有所侧重，就把我的贴上了:)

现在写Argu，一是觉得开头结尾不能写成xdf模版式的，因为废话多于正话且官方6分的都没有那么写的了；二是觉得满眼看过去都是错误，却很难理清自己的思路，找个合适的thread把整篇文章串起来。（这篇我是分别按照两个study展开的）

正在努力练习中，互勉~

我的Argument53：

Before running to the 'clear' conclusion that increased levels of melatonin before birth cause shyness during infany and continues into later life, we may just as well examine the two studies the argument is based on, which are not persuasive to support the arguer's reasoning.

First and foremost, the study carried thirteen years ago doesn't necessarily result in the causation between increased melatonin and infant's shyness. There is no scientific ground provided to describe the function of melatonin and its relationship with the mechanism of shyness. Although the arguer mentioned that melatonin is a kind of hormone that would naturally increase in response to decreased daylight, the result of the experiment simply runs to the conjecture of the time of the mothers' pregnancy, which corresponds to the precondition of the arguer. Thus the argument that increased levels melatonin lead to infancy shyness simply confuses the premise with the conclusion of the study.

Besides, whether the reactions of infants in the first study indicates infant shyness remains to be doubtful. The unfamiliar stimuli the researchers used might invoke any new-born baby to react in signs of distress. As common sense tells us that infants don't have anything to be familiar with, any kind of 'unusual' stimuli to our judgement, given aural, visual, or olfactory would arouse general discomfort and behaviors of distress in all infants. Thus the stimulus used are not sufficient to test the potential distress due to infant shyness. Even if the stimuli are scientifically tested to be arouse the special distressful reactions, we not are informed of whether the 'mild signs of distress' is the cause of infant shyness. We may assume that those mild reactions of distress may result from testiness of the infant, which is a characteristic far from shyness. Or perhaps the infant is sensitive to the stimuli and respond actively, however unfortunately regarded by researchers as signs of distress.

Still, the succeeding study earlier this year doesn't support the conclusion that the it is the melatonin results in their adolescent shyness. As the formation of adolescents' character may due to many other influential factors as family rearing, geographic and societal background, education, etc. We cannot owe the teens' shyness solely to what happened in their mothers' pregnancies without ruling out the factors mentioned above. Thus with same reasons, it is totally unfair to assume that their shyness will continue in later life, when myriad of unexpected and more complex circumstances may change their character, more or less. What's more, given only half of these children who identified themselves as shy can hardly represent the necessary link between infant shyness and melatonin. We may also ask: are these teenagers really shy in character or just being shy talking about themselves? As we all know that even a grownup cannot recognize his or her real character, how could we rely on younger ones to give a clear view of themselves?

Moreover, too many vague information and unwarranted assumptions are contained in the arguer's reasoning. For an experiment to be scientifically convincing, it must be strictly designed as for the representativeness of examinees and their detailed enough information, the time, place of the experiment, and explicit descriptions of the testee's reactions. However, the two studies quoted as main evidences in this argument fail to provide either of these key factors of a successful experiment. Thus we have full reason to doubt whether the result of these studies are credible enough support the arguer's deduction.

To sum up, the two studies conducted are not supportive enough to draw the conclusion as the arguer maintains. Without detailed scientific grounds are supplied to describe the conduction and deduction of the experiments, we cannot agree upon the conclusion.

森林116UID: 2272614

楼上的兄弟,,blue就交给你了,,我怕是没时间改了