Argument35 【0906G 文以载道三月四月小组】第一周第一次作业 by 露珠

露珠UID: 2588328

Argument35
The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia.
"Salicylates（水杨酸脂） are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. This rise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in our twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives（食品香料） for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia."
水杨酸酯和用来治疗头痛的药物--阿司匹林是同一类化合物。尽管很多食品天然富含水杨酸酯，过去几十年中食品加工公司仍然在食品中加入它来作为防腐剂。这种水杨酸酯在商业上的使用被发现与我们为期20年研究的参加者所报告的头痛发病的平均数量下降是相关的。最近，食品加工公司发现水杨酸酯也可以被用作食品香料。根据这种水杨酸酯的新用途，我们可以预期Mentia居民患头痛症的数量将会持续稳步下降。
提纲：
1长达20年的调查报告来说明研究参加者的头痛发病率下降与S有关，并不能保证所有头痛的人都报告了
2就算20年前的情况与现在符合，也不能保证S 可以治疗头痛。S只是和A是属于同一类化合物，拥有相似的化学结构，却不能保证对于治疗头痛的效果也是相同的。
3 同样，即使治疗效果相同，也没法排除其他导致患头疼的居民数量下降的原因，如（提倡）健康的生活方式，医疗水平发达，环境质量得到改善等原因。  他认为这种症状数量会稳步持续的下降，却忽视了使头疼发病率上升的原因，如快节奏的生活和工作压力，失眠等原因

In this argument, the author predicts that salicylates could constantly decline the amount of residents of Mentia who suffered from headache. At first glance, the reasoning seems quite convincing and sound, however, further reflection reveals that it omits some strong and indispensable evidence. In my point of view, the statement errs in three logical fallacies.
The arguer provides no assurances that the report on which the argument depends is statistically reliable. Lacking information about the number of surveyed and the number of respondents, it is impossible to assess the validity of the results. For instance, if there are one hundred people who were surveyed about headache but only twenty individuals responded that their headache associate with the use of salicylates, the conclusion that salicylates has an impact on the number of people who has headache would be highly suspected. Another problem is the representative of the respondents. The arguer fails to assure that the report’s respondents are delegates of participants who alleviated headache because of salicylates. According to such evidence, the author cannot draw a certain conclusion based on the report.  
The author inaccurately presumes that salicylates and aspirin have the same efficacy of mitigating headache. Nevertheless, the arguer provides no evidence to substantiate that this is the case, nor does the author establish a causal relationship between salicylates and aspirin. In spit of aspirin has a great curative effect on headache, furthermore, salicylates has the same chemical structure with aspirin, the author still cannot confirm that salicylates have the equivalent efficacy.
Even if salicylates has the same efficacy with aspirin, the author relies on the additional assumption that it is contribute to the decline of the amount of people have headache. However, salicylates cannot be the only reason which leads to this situation. It is highly possible that other factors might also bring in these same results. For instance, the wholesome and regular life pattern, highly developed medical system and great improved environmental quality are probably responsible for that. He also believed that salicylates could steady decline the number of people have headache, whereas, he ignored another indispensable condition that there are also many reasons served to increase the proportion of headache. Such as great pressure of life and work and some disease like insomnia. Without accounting for this and other possible causations, the author opinionatedly brought in a verdict.
To sum up, this arguer fails to attest its prediction that salicylates can steady decline in number of individuals suffered from headache. To strengthen the conclusion, the author should give more evidences to justify the possibilities above-mentioned, it would have been more rational and reasonable.

yuzhirenzheUID: 2520772

个人意见,仅供参考
修改地址连接:
https://bbs.gter.net/viewthre ... &extra=page%3D1

[ 本帖最后由 yuzhirenzhe 于 2009-1-14 12:10 编辑 ]