Argument35【7\8\9\10】第5次作业

atreusUID: 2471951

TOPIC: ARGUMENT35 - The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia.

"Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. This rise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in our twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia."
WORDS: 474          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-7-28 16:00:14

The argument makes the conclusion that the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia will decline steadily due to the use salicylates as flavor additives for food. To support the argument the author cites a study to prove the steady decline of headaches have correlation with salicylates in food. However, the argument is not entirely logically convincing, since it ignores certain crucial assumptions.

The threshold problem with the argument is that the author provides no evidences that the study's result is statistically reliable.  In order to establish a strong correlation between the headache decline and the effect of salicylates in food, the study's sample must be sufficient in size and representative of the overall population of the citizen in Mentia. The participants in the study maybe a small sample quantity comparing with the overall residents of Mentia, so their alleviated headache could not represent all the residents' situation. Lacking evidence of a sufficiently representative sample, the author can not justifiably rely on the study to draw any conclusion whatever.

Second, the argument assumes that the salicylates as preservatives in food leads to the drop in the headache number, yet it does nothing to explain how this happen. Common sense tell us that the mount of preservatives in food is quiet small, because over dote of that will do harm to people health. In this case, the salicylates in food should be so small in quantity that it could have effect on curing the headache. The headache reported have decreased in number may result from the improvement of the health situation among the residents over the twenty years with health diet and necessary excises. Or it is possible that they take other medicine to treat the headache. Without ruling other factors, the author can not convince me that the commercial use of salicylates has correlation with a steady decline in the average number of headaches.

Finally, even if assuming the salicylates as preservatives could help to the decline in the headache, the further continued steady decline would be not ensured by using salicylates as the flavor additives. On one hand, the additives are quiet small in the constitution of the food, which render the effect of salicylates as medicine used to treat headaches impossible and ignorable. On another hand, the decline of headaches cases will result from the health situation improvement and the effective treatment to the headaches among the residences who suffer the headaches.

In sum, the argument is not completely sound. The evidence in support of the conclusion that a continued steady decline in the number of headaches does little to prove that conclusion, since it dose not address the assumption already raised. Ultimately, the argument might have been strengthened if the author provide more statistically reliable in sample in the study and the factors which affect the headaches declination.

[ 本帖最后由 atreus 于 2008-7-28 17:15 编辑 ]