冬至第三次作业ARGUMENT

dongzhi428UID: 2556730

TOPIC: ARGUMENT167 - A folk remedy* for insomnia, the scent in lavender flowers, has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. During the second week, the volunteers discontinued their medication. As a result, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. This shows that over a short period of time lavender cures insomnia.
*A folk remedy is usually a plant-based form of treatment common to traditional forms of medicine, ones that developed before the advent of modern medical services and technology.
WORDS: 460
TIME: 00:55:00!
DATE: 2009-8-23 10:04:36

The author of the argument claims that through a short period of time lavender experiment, it proofs lavender can cure insomnia. To justify the conclusion, the author points out that 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia were to be tested by sleeping with lavender-scented pillows. In addition, he indicates that in the first week the volunteers continued to use the usual sleeping medication as a result of sleeping soundly but wakened feeling tired. Furthermore, he asserts that after three weeks experiment; the volunteers were slept longer and more soundly than the past two weeks. However based on series of unwarranted assumptions and evidence, the argument suffers several critical flaws as follows.

To begin with, the selective sample of this study was open to doubt. There is not enough information about what kind of patients they are, while the quantity of the sample is also too littlie to be ensured as a certain size. How about their condition before experiment, whether is serious or not, we do not get any details. Besides, the author doses not provide any information about the experiment process, such as the environment of the room, the life way of these 30 volunteers. Hence, the assumption is base on incredible experiment.

Moreover, the three weeks' experiment is also not enough to be recognized as a credibility data of proving the changing of sleep quality. Only three weeks cannot proof that the condition has already level off the condition of the volunteers, which should be texted for a long term. On the other hand there exit many doubtful phenomenon during the process of experiment, which at the second week people appear a great deal of questions about sleeping like less soundly and more tired with using the lavender-scented pillows.

Finally, the author fails to account and rule out other factors that might account for changing of sleep. Maybe after the second week’s fatigue the patients could get a better sleeping naturally, or perhaps besides taking usual medicine the patients have eaten other useful foods. Without those details, it is unsubstantiated to be proof that it is only the functional of using lavender-scented pillows. Even more importantly, whether the slept longer and more soundly could means curing the insomnia is obviously confused by the author. The result is only to be validated quickly into sleep can it called insomnia.

To sum up, the conclusion reached in his argument lacks credibility since the evidence is not reliable. To better evaluate the argument, we need more concrete evidence that the information of the patients condition before text and the details of the experiment process, while it also need continuing text for a long time in order to fine out the exact result. Otherwise, the argument is not convincing and persuasive enough to be accepted.