argument53 0906G三月底AW“永不言弃”互改小组第一周第三次作业 by MYcolting 2#

MYcoltingUID: 2563080

   53.Thirteen years ago, researchers studied a group of 25 infants who showed signs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli such as an unusual odor or a tape recording of an unknown voice. They discovered that these infants were more likely than other infants to have been conceived in early autumn, a time when their mothers' production of melatonin-a hormone known to affect some brain functions-would naturally increase in response to decreased daylight. In a follow-up study conducted earlier this year, more than half of these children-now teenagers-who had shown signs of distress identified themselves as shy. Clearly, increased
levels of melatonin before birth cause shyness during infancy and this shyness continues into later life.
13年前，研究者研究了一组在受到不熟悉的刺激比如不寻常的气味和未知声音的录音时表现出轻微紧张的25名婴儿。他们发现这些婴儿比其他婴儿更可能在早秋怀孕，而早秋是他们的母亲分泌的melatonin--一种已知会影响一些大脑功能的荷尔蒙--因日照的减少而增加的季节。在今年早些时候所作的跟踪调查中，这些表现出紧张迹象的儿童--现在已经是十几岁--有一半以上认为自己害羞。显然，出生前melatonin的增加导致婴儿期的羞涩并且这种羞涩将延续至生命更晚的阶段。

1 证据不足  没有迹象表明那种荷尔蒙一定会导致婴儿害羞  而且也无法确定这种激素究竟是对婴儿有作用还是对母亲 或 两者
2 人的性格还受其他因素的影响 比如环境

   In this argument, the arguer claims that a hormone called melatonin plays an important role by affecting people's character into shyness after they were born. To substantiate this conclusion, the arguer cites the evidence that most of these infants participated in this research were born in autumn when their mothers produce more melatonin than normal. And another survey was taken when all these infants grow up into teenagers, to show that most of them have the character of shyness. Although this research sounds reasonable, but after serious consideration, we can see that there are some critical fallacies in this argument.
   First, there is not sufficient evidence to prove that melatonin is the main reason of causing people growing up into shy personalities. Though most of these infants were conceived in autumn, when their mothers' production of melatonin increases, we still can not say that this melatonin has affect infants before they were born. In this argument, the arguer refers to the fact that melatonin does influence some brain functions of people, but he failed to tell us who exactly will be impacted by this substance, the mother or the child, or both. Maybe the infant will grow naturally without any influence of this hormone, from which we can not say that melatonin has something to do with our personalities. Even the experiment on the 25 infants has little persuasion about this hormone's effect. Maybe most normal infants would response similarly like these 25 infants, which indicates that the arguer failed to provide distinct responses between different kinds of infants.
   Second, we can see little detail about the follow-up study, which can not prove the arguer's conclusion to be right. There is little evidence about how the children grow up and under what condition do these children grow up. As we all know, living condition plays a significant role in the construction of personality. Maybe, most of them are brought up under depressive climate, or maybe they have experienced some tragedies and so on, which can easily and significantly influence their characters deep even continues until their death.
  In conclusion, the arguer failed to bring forward forceful evidences or facts to approve his point. In order to improve this conclusion, the arguer need to get more accurate information about how exactly does melatonin affect people's personalities and how long will it last. Furthermore, the arguer also needs to eliminate all the other factors that could wave his conclusion