ARGUMENT129 by zephyrqq

zephyrqqUID: 2260290

ARGUMENT129 - The following appeared in the Sherwood Times newspaper.

"A recent study reported that pet owners have longer, healthier lives on average than do people who own no pets. Specifically, dog owners tend to have a lower incidence of heart disease. In light of these findings, Sherwood Hospital should form a partnership with Sherwood Animal Shelter to institute an 'adopt-a-dog' program. The program would encourage dog ownership for patients recovering from heart disease, which will help reduce medical costs by reducing the number of these patients needing ongoing treatment. In addition, the publicity about the program will encourage more people to adopt pets from the shelter, which will reduce the risk of heart disease in the general population."

一项最近的研究报告说养宠物的人平均而言比不养宠物的人活得更长更健康。特别是，养狗的人心脏病发病率更低。根据这些发现，Sherwood医院应该和Sherwood动物收养所合作建立一个"收养狗"的计划。这一计划将会鼓励正在治疗心脏病的患者养狗，这将通过减少这些患者接受治疗的次数而减少医疗费用。而且，对于这一计划的宣传将鼓励更多的人从收养所领养宠物，这将减少整体人群患心脏病的危险。

（一下宠物一下狗的，被他弄de我都混乱了。。）
1.养宠物不能导致身体好，心脏病发病率低
2.养狗计划不能减少医疗费
3.公开这个计划不能使养宠物的人增多，不能减少心脏病危险


字数：367     640     用时：00:35:00          日期：2008-2-25 18:35:39

Before accepting the author's recommendation of the 'adopt-a-dog' program, we should make a reflection on this argument once more. The author fails to establish a reliable causal relationship between owning pets and longer healthier lives, especially improving heart disease, therefore his conclusion is open to doubt.

First and foremost, the author unfairly assume that the study, showing pet owners have longer, heather lives and low risk of heart disease than do people who have no pet, implies that it is the ownership of pets that contribute to a better healthy condition. However, without any evidence that indicates why having pets could benefit the pet-owner's physical condition, this implicit presumption is obviously problematic. It is entirely possible that those who have a relatively worse healthy condition are so busy engaged in taking care of themselves that they simply have not so much time and energy to take care of a pet. Or, perhaps some sick men suffered from serious disease, including severe heart disease, even could not lead a comfortable and ordinary live without the help of others, and it is quite understandable these people would less tend to own a pet due to their less ability to look after a pet. Or, pet owners are more likely to be rich than those who do not have any pet and they enjoy a better living level and then suffer from fewer disease. Any of these possibility, if true, could severs as sound explanations for the superficial relevant relationship revealed the result of the study.

Furthermore, even if we accept that dog-ownership could reduce the incidence of heart disease, the author could not take it for granted that the program named “adopt a dog” could reduce medical costs. First, common sense tells us that a method that could use to prevent the happening of disease does not necessarily could be applied to treating it effectively, for the condition of a patient might be quite different from that of a normal person. Hence, owning dog, assuming could prevent heart disease, could not automatically promote patients recover from heart disease. Besides, even if adopting dogs could possess that magic power of curing heart disease, the author also fails to take into account the possibility that pets, like dogs, could carry various kind of virus and bacteria which would increase pet owners’ risk of other disease, especially when the owners are patients with weak immunity. If so, the medical costs of other diseases spreading via dogs would increase. Either of these reasons could weaken the author’s claim that the recommended program would reduce medical cost.

Another problem involves the author’s conclusion that the publicity about the program will encourage more people to adopt pets from the shelter and therefore will reduce the incidence of heart disease in the general population. First, adopting pets might could do nothing to decrease the incidence of heart disease as it analyzed above. Secondly, even assuming it can there are a lot of factors which working together to determine whether a individual will adopt a pet or not. For instance, the economical condition, the living habit, the attitude towards pets, even personal character. Comparing to these factors in all, the influence of the publicity of the program might not be so significant and it is possible that it would not lead to the increase of pet owners. Thirdly, even if more people would like to adopt pets, they could pick one from any shelter or pet shop other than Sherwood Animal Shelter.


For all these foregoing reasons, this argument is unsubstantial as it stands. We could not view the author’s suggestion as something valuable, unless he do not present evidence showing that owning pets possess the power to prevent and cure heart disease. Of course, other measures to impede the spread of diseases that might caused by pathogens carried by pets would also be helpful.

[ 本帖最后由 zephyrqq 于 2008-3-6 19:06 编辑 ]