argument53 永不言弃小组 by victor883 8#

victor883UID: 2584914

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。



The arguer maintains that the character of shyness during the infant period and the later times of a people’s life results from the increasing of the melatonin--- a hormone which is excreted in the mother’s body, particular in the early autumn when the time of daylight is shorter. And this statement is proved by the arguer through the ways involved the research of a group of 25 infants and the observation of their characters when they grow to teenagers. However, the arguer is unable to make the conclusion convincing and accepted thoughtfully by me.

Firstly, the arguer fails to make a logic relationship between the generation of shyness and the effect of the hormone. Even the study shows that the infants are main born at the early autumn when the level of hormone is high by virtue of the decrease of the sunlight time, but it may force me to doubt that there are some other elements under the same background can also induce to the information of shyness. it is possible that some materials in the body of the mother, such as unknown hormones, certain nutrient elements may also be gendered in the early autumn which also affects the infants’ features. At the same time, it is entirely possible that some external elements, such as the climate and circumstances contributed to the infant’s easily-distressed and shyness feature. So the argument ineptly generalizes a conclusion is certainly unable to withstand the logical scrutiny.

Secondly, the arguer overlooks the information of a kind of character can also be affected by some external elements during their growing time ,such as the family where the children be bred up , the school in which they study and live, even their inclination to what kinds of people, and so forth. As we all known, in some sense the circumstances around can determine the personality of a person, especially in he or she’s childhood and adolescent period. So it is incorrect that the shyness of a person is already determined before birth by some hormone level of the mother.

What’s more, there exists a certain unnecessary deficiency in the research in that the sample, what I mean the participants in this study, is so limited that have no ability to draw any reliable conclusion. If the argue wants to establish the strong relations between shyness and melatonin, the first job is to conduct a research with sufficient samples which can represent the overall infants. Without enough samples to be researched, any conclusion drawn by the arguer is unsustainable.

All in all, the arguer’s conclusion is unconvincing in certain degree due to unfair generalization. And the arguer should make up the scientifical relationship between the shyness and melatonin and do a more detailed research and then make a convincing conclusion.