Argument200 【Persistence 小组】第22次作业

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2.22
A200Statistics collected from dentists indicate that three times more men than women faint while visiting the dentist. This evidence suggests that men are more likely to be distressed about having dental work done than women are. Thus, dentists who advertise to attract patients should target the male consumer and emphasize both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients.
1.昏厥和痛苦并不一定有直接关系
2 对男女的广告应该一样，
3 太敏感不是好事情

In the above argument, author asserts that the advertisements of dentists should focus on the male consumer and emphasize both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients. To support his conclusion, author provides the evidence that the statistics shows that quite more man faint while visiting faint than women as men are more likely to be distressed about having dental work than women. However, after further consideration on conclusion and evidence, there are flaws in both of them.

First, the premise of this argument itself can’t stand well. Author indicates that men are more distressed about having dental work then women because three times more men faint while visiting dentist. But author didn’t show direct relationship between the faint and the ability of distress. We know that there are many reasons which can cause faint. Sometimes more men faint than women because of the difference of body or just coincidence. Unless author provide the medical explanation showing that men’s more distressed is the reason that more men faint while visiting doctors or the premise can’t support the final conclusion in the argument.

On the other hand, even if the assumption about men’s distressed is correct. Whether the suggestion in the conclusion is reasonable or not is still a question. It does say that more men can faint than women, but the number of fainted people is still unknown. This is the key of the problem. We all know that the investment of money is must be needed when changing the emphases of the advertisement and the advertisement must be surely suitable for most of person. This probability exists that although more men faint during the process of treatment, the number of people who faint is still quite small contradicting total number of patients. If so, can investing so much money to attract just a little part of person is worthy? Obviously no.

Finally, I must add that what author says that the clinic’s advertisements must concern both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients is also doubtful. To solve this question, we must understand clearly that the goal of patients going to see the dentists is to make them recover from toothache. So how to heal them in a short time and with low price is the priority. Emphasizing too much on effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients can be too ex parte.

In sum, to strengthen the conclusion, author needs to show that the direct relationship between faint and distressed, the exact number of faint people is also needed. Otherwise, we still need to know what the patients actually concern while they visit the dentists. After further investigation and survey we can know that whether the conclusion made in the above argument is reasonable or not.