Argument51【CRUCADE小组】第四次作业 by dreamcasaer

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argument51(441)

[题目]“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.”

1人的年龄段是否相等？病情是否相同？
2医生不一样
3糖也许会减慢恢复
4如果以上都成立，题目却没有分析抗生素所带来的副作用，就得出应该用它作辅助治疗，有可能它带来的坏处要更大一些。

        By citing a study of two groups of patients, the arguer asserts that all patients diagnosed with muscle stain should take antibiotics as part of their treatment. This conclusion seems lack of enough evidence to support itself, and I will discuss in following four paragraphs.

        Firstly, the argument does not give any evidence about the condition of the two groups of people. Providing that the first group have more young people, but in second group, the majority of people are elderly. Under such circumstance, it is obvious that the first group will be faster, because the young people have stronger healing ability. In a not dissimilar way, the argument do not has any information about the condition of illness of two groups; perhaps the second group’s average degree of the disease is more serious than the first group, which may also leads a slower healing speed. Therefore, this study is not enough reliance to demonstrate the antibiotic is helpful for treating this illness.
   
        Secondly, if the conditions of two groups are similar, yet the conclusion fails to take into account the fact that these two groups of people are treated by different doctors, and the first group’s doctor is excel in treating this kind of illness. Thus, it is fully possible that the reduction of recuperation time attributes to the doctor’s proper treatment but not the antibiotic.

        Even if the two doctors’ treatments are same, however, this argument has no evidence to suggest that the sugar pills will not affect the healing speed. If the sugar could slow down the recovery speed, it is entirely possible that if the second group were not take sugar pills, perhaps their recovery speed may be equal or even quicker than the first group. Therefore in such case, the conclusion that the faster healing time is because of the use of antibiotics seems groundless.

        Finally, if above flaws are not exist, there is still an important fallacy, that the arguer fails to role out the side-effect of the antibiotic. As far as I know, the long-term use of antibiotic will diminish people’s resistance, and consequently, use antibiotic as a part of treatment on muscle strain which require a long time to recover is not proper. At the even worse, maybe antibiotic has other unknown serious side-effect, so in such case, the disadvantages they bring may far outweigh the advantages they have.

        To sum up, it is presumptuous to judge the conclusion merely according to this evidence in the argument. To illustrate his point of view, the arguer should provide more information about the study and the antibiotic’s side-effect, and exclude those fallacies I stated above.

[ 本帖最后由 dreamcasaer 于 2007-2-25 19:26 编辑 ]