0910G[North America Flying]Argument53 by fake

fake2009UID: 2631119

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.

The arguer made a direct connection of cause and effect—between the increased levels of melatonin of mother and the babies’ shyness during infancy and later life. To support this assertion, the arguer cites an survey and a follow-up which suffer from some flaws in the persuasion as follows: 1) the result of the survey isn’t reliable enough; 2) a wrong assumption that the production of melatonin has an actual effect on the baby; 3) the follow-up survey fall to recognize other factors that could result in children’s shyness.

Firstly, the survey among 25 infants which might not be randomly chosen isn’t convincing, in that the infants may suffer from other severer situations, like poor hygiene conditions, uneven feeding, or some other special bring-up environment. What more, the poll is not large enough, for it only choose 25 infants to participate in the survey. Such improvements that the survey poll is large enough and the infants are randomly chosen, thus the individual characters to affect the results can be eliminated. The speaker also ignored that a normal grown-up might also become distressed if there’s some unfamiliar stimuli, not mention the newly born babies.

Secondly, the deduction from the above survey was only recognizable if the assumption—mother’s melatonin could affect baby’s distress--is right. Though, the argument didn’t provide much evidence to strengthen the assumption. It was mentioned that the function of melatonin is to affect some brain functions which is not clear enough. Whether it could affect mothers’ response or the babies’? The argument hasn’t made it clear. By the way, to my knowledge, the average less daylight appears in winter in north hemisphere. So it’s crucial for us to know the place where the survey was conducted. Or there exist other possibilities, like the defects of DNA or other existed incentives in autumn.

In the follow-up survey, it never mentioned other possible reasons that lead to the children’s shyness. As we know, the nature and nurture are of equal significance, in that children’s characteristics might be decided by the innate genes as well as post-natal environment. Even twins who are not raised in the same environment embrace different characteristics. It is possible that more than half of the children were suffering from peer pressure, losing faith and self-confidence, receiving aspersion from others, etc. In addition, the survey avoids providing the statistics of the other half of children. There is a possibility that claimed distressed infants have changed into outgoing, brave and open teenagers. So it’s hard to tell the melatonin reveals positive or negative effects.

In sum, to fortify the argument, the speaker should first perfect the survey in enlargement of poll and the random choice of infants, and then provide convincing evidence that shows the melatonin would take effects on babies. To eliminate other possible factors which would affect children’s post-natal characteristics will strengthen the reliability of the follow-up survey.

421899282UID: 2595732

攻击点
1.调查范围不够大，不随机
2、没有说明melatonin和distress的直接关系，还有其他因素影响
3、shy的造成也有多种其他环境因素影响

攻击点基本上都是说，不能排除其他因素的影响，略显单一。
其中，第一段说成人对刺激也有反应，我觉得可以进一步展开来说，来论证它的评判标准还有和正常标准的比较问题。