Argument35 [快刀杀鸡]7/30 作业by clemmensen

clemmensenUID: 2663199

In this argument, the arguer asserts that the number headaches suffered by the residents in Mentia will decline stably in the future. To bolster the assertion, the arguer points out that food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods, and cites the evidence that salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Furthermore, the arguer cites the result of a 20-year survey indicating that there is a steady decline in the average number of headaches suffered by its participants, and asserts that this result is related to the preservatives—salicylates—which has been added to food for past several decades. At first glance, this argument seems to be convincing, but further reflection reveals that these evidences neither constitute a logical statement in support of its conclusion nor providing compelling support making this argument sound and invulnerable.

First of all, although salicylates and aspirin are of the same chemical family, they might not have the same effect to treat headaches. In the field of organic chemistry, a chemical family always contains a large number of compounds, but the slight difference in structure can result in large difference in properties. For instance, an alcohol molecule differs merely from a methanol molecule for three atoms, but the alcohol is the major constituent of wine, while the methanol is known as industrial spirit, a fatal toxic compound. Thus, it is dangerous to give the assumption that salicylates can be used to treat headaches because they are of members of the same chemical family as aspirin. Although this assumption might be right, until the arguer provides further evidence to exclude all these concerns, it is unfounded to reach the conclusion involved in the argument.

The second flaw that weakens the logic of this argument is that the arguer assumes that there are relations between the decreasing number of headaches and the use of salycylates as preservatives. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that it is necessarily case and it is quite possible that it is just a coincidence. For instance, the aids virus was found in 1981 and has been spreading rapidly during the past several decades, and the population of the world increases from less than 5 billion to more than 6 billion. It is obviously that there is no relation between the rapid spreading virus and the rapid increasing population. The arguer fails to consider other factors that may also result in the decline in the number of the headaches suffered by participants in the study. The decline in the number of the headaches suffered by participants might result from that they have better living condition than before or they have relived their stress. In short, without better evidence ruling out these and other alternative explanations, it is reasonable to cast considerable doubt on this assumption.

The last but not the least important, even if the arguer can substantiate all of the foregoing assumptions, his assumption that the participants can represent the average citizen in Mentia is still unwarranted. The arguer does not provide the percentage of the gross population by the participants. If the number of participants were relatively small when compared to the number of the residents in Mentia, the study’s result would be doubtful.

To sum up, the conclusion lacks credibility because the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to what the arguer maintains. Therefore, if the author had considered the given factors discussed above, the argument would have been more through and logically acceptable. To strengthen the argument, further investigation and analysis are needed to prove that salicylates have the effect to treat headaches. Additionally, the author would provide more information to eliminate all other possible explanations for the decline in the number of headaches.