Argument165 飞跃dreams第四次作业

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT165 - The following appeared in a business magazine.
"As a result of numerous consumer complaints of dizziness and nausea, Promofoods requested that eight million cans of tuna be returned for testing last year. Promofoods concluded that the cans did not, after all, contain chemicals that posed a health risk. This conclusion is based on the fact that the chemists from Promofoods tested samples of the recalled cans and found that, of the eight chemicals most commonly blamed for causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea, five were not found in any of the tested cans. The chemists did find that the three remaining suspected chemicals are naturally found in all other kinds of canned foods."
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In this argument, Promofoods, after numerous complains of dizziness and nausea, concludes that no chemical in this kind of tuna can poses a health risk. At first glance, this conclusion seems tantalizingly convincing, but further evaluation reveals logical fallacies that weaken the conclusion.

To begin with, the concept of health risk is too vague to be informative. Since dizziness and nausea is just two symptoms of various diseases, the experiment designed to rule out these two negative effects does not lend strong bolster to the conclusion. The health risk is an inclusive words including over-exposure to unhealthy environment, long-term overburdened work, even psychological influence. So the hasty conclusion made is not comprehensive enough.

Secondly, from the experiment quoted in the argument, however, we find no sign of procedure for random sampling, and have good reasons to doubt whether the sample is representative enough to reflect the general situation as a whole. It is entirely possible that the tested samples include no can from the eight million, and in such a case the conclusion tells little about the negative effect of the tuna can.

Even assuming that the experiment was designed in proper procedure, its results are unpersuasive to strengthen the conclusion. Since the experiment only tests the eight chemicals most commonly blamed for the two symptoms, other factors or unknown chemicals are neglected. It is entirely possible that superfluous chemicals less blamed are the truly significant stimulation in the two symptoms. Moreover, because the author fails to provide statistical evidence to tell precise percentage of the eight chemicals, the unfound five as well as the suspected three could all throw significant on customers. Assuming that the quantity of the remaining three far outpaces the required standards, the final report is unfounded and even misleading.

In summary, the argument is not logically acceptable. To make it convincing, the author should provide more specific details about the experiments and the sampling procedure. Moreover, the statistics and results of the eight chemicals are needed.