Argument167 飞跃dreams第五次作业

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT167 - A folk remedy* for insomnia, the scent in lavender flowers, has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. During the second week, the volunteers discontinued their medication. As a result, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. This shows that over a short period of time lavender cures insomnia.
*A folk remedy is usually a plant-based form of treatment common to traditional forms of medicine, ones that developed before the advent of modern medical services and technology.
WORDS: 362          TIME: 45min


In this argument, the author concludes that lavender cures insomnia over a short period of time. To strengthen his conclusion, he endeavors to convince us effectivity of the folk remedy. Additionally, he provides evidence of a experiment designed to prove positive influence on curing insomnia. At first glance, the conclusion seems tantalizingly convincing, but further evaluation tells us there exist several logical fallacies in the argument.

In the first place, the author commits various fallacies in designing the experiment. Firstly, there exists no sign of procedure of random sampling, and all people are selected from volunteers. Since previous health condition of these volunteers may be similar in some respects, the result from these people is not representative enough. Secondly, the author fails to settle control group in the experiment. Statistics from just one group lack comparability and persuasion. Without ruling out other factors involved, it is entirely possible that the decrease in sleep quality during the second week results dominantly from the medication in the first week. Thirdly, final result of the experiment is too vague to lend strong support to the reasoning. Without specific statistics, the equivocal words "more", "less" fail to convince us there does exist significant improvement in sleep quality of volunteers.

Secondly, even assuming that the experiment is amended in its procedure, the author fails to establish casual relationship between high efficiency of the folk remedy and the expected result of the experiment. Since the 30 volunteers suffer the chronic insomnia, the effectivivty on acute insomnia is quite open to doubt. Whether it contributes significantly to appeasement of unexpected insomnia awaits further confirmation. Moreover, the author fails to provide necessary information concerning whether patients ever suffer insomnia again after the three weeks. Given that patients fall into insomnia again with remedy still on, its effectivity will be questionable and problematic.

Finally, the author arrives at a hasty generalization that lavender cures insomnia rapidly and efficiently. Since three weeks is already not "a short period of time", the conclusion is erroneous to some certain degree. As the author confesses previously, volunteer wake up tiredly during the first week of remedy, thus the improvement of sleeping quality requires further assurance.