argument145 请教

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Argument145

题目：
A new study collected data that shows that people who snore are more likely to gain weight than are people who do not snore. It is well known that many people who snore also stop breathing frequently during the night for a few seconds, a condition called sleep apnea. The interruption of breathing wakes the person—often so briefly that the waking goes unnoticed—and can leave the person too tired during the day to exercise. Anyone who snores, therefore, should try to eat less than the average person and to exercise more.

In this argument, the author conclude that people who snore are more easily gain weight and advocates those people should eat less and exercise more than average people. As the argument merely based on an unwarranted study and several poorly proved assumptions, I find its conclusion unconvincing.

To begin with, the author fails to provide more necessary information to establish a causal relationship between snore and tiredness. As cited in the argument, people who snore usually in a condition called sleep apnea during sleep, but the author have not substantial statistics to prove sleep apnea can really cause wake. Moreover, he or she just skips the evidence that sleep apnea wakes people without notice. It is highly possible that even though people stop breathing and their sleep do be interrupted by a few seconds, the waking is unconscious---that is to say sleep is not completely intervened by sleep apnea---and has no effect to the quality of sleep. If this is the case, the argument's further assumption based on it will be unreliable.

Secondly, even people are waken by sleep apnea during sleep, the assumption that people are too tired in the day time due to the sleep-interruption is unconvincing.
It is entirely possible that those people who snore feel tired during the day not for the reason of sleep apnea but other possible explanations. For example, if those very people do more physical activities than average people, they will feel more tired than average people, or they think it is unnecessary to exercise. Or perhaps, those people who snore happen to be a group of people in a relative weaker healthy condition than common people. If so, they will also be too tired to exercise. AS the author fails to rule out such and other possibility, the causal linkage between tiredness and snore is unwarranted.

Thirdly, even I concede all the assumption listed in the argument is convincing and people who snore are likely to gain weight, I cannot agree the advice that people who snore should eat less and exercise more than average people. The author has not referred any evidence about effectiveness of his advice. It may be the case that exercise more and eat less do little help in losing weight. Also it may be the case that people who exercise more are likely to stimulate appetite, so they will result in eating more in turn regardless of the advice. Moreover, the author neglects the possibility for people who snore to exercise more. As he or she states in the argument those people feel too tired to exercise, they may reluctantly do physical exercise, or even do not exercise.

In sum, the argument suffers several critical flaws which render the conclusion weak and unconvincing. In order to make his or her advice more sensible, the author should provide more detailed information to establish a causal linkage between snore and fatigue. Similarly, so is the linkage between snore and gaining weight. Moreover, the author needs to show the effectiveness of doing more exercise and eating less.
累死了。。。