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51The following appeared in a medical newsletter.
'Doctors have long suspected that secondary infections may keep some patients from healing quickly after severe muscle strain. This hypothesis has now been proved by preliminary results of a study of two groups of patients. The first group of patients, all being treated for muscle injuries by Dr. Newland, a doctor who specializes in sports medicine, took antibiotics regularly throughout their treatment. Their recuperation time was, on average, 40 percent quicker than typically expected. Patients in the second group, all being treated by Dr. Alton, a general physician, were given sugar pills, although the patients believed they were taking antibiotics. Their average recuperation time was not significantly reduced. Therefore, all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment.'
正文:
According to the arguer's opinion, to those people who are diagnosed with muscle strain, it would make them recover more quickly to take antibiotics. Nevertheless, after close scrutiny on the arguer's reasoning process, we can discover that the arguer has committed several fatal fallacies, all of which may weaken his conclusion seriously. Here come my concrete refutations on his process of reasoning at the logic angle.
To begin with, the arguer has unfairly assumed that those people, who are diagnosed with muscle strain, will suffer from secondary infections when they are on their treatment. In this argument, we can hardly find any information which can justify the correctness of this assumption. Perhaps that only few people who are diagnosed with muscle strain will suffer from the secondary infections. In that case, the base which the arguer has built his conclusion on is doubtable. Hence, the arguer can not convince us that his assumption is proper, let alone his last conclusion.
In the second place, even if almost all the people who are diagnosed with muscle strain will suffer from secondary infections, however, the conclusion of this argument is still problematic in many other aspects. The most important aspect is whether the study, cited in this argument, is reliable or not. There are three flaws concerning the study's process and its results. First of all, the two groups of patients may not have the similar condition in ages, sexes, physical situation and so on. It is entirely possible that the first group of patients are younger and stronger than the second group of patients, thus maybe the first group of patients are not easy to get secondary infections because of their strong physical conditions. Secondly, the difference between the two doctors is also very likely to weaken the results of the study. As the first doctor is major in sports medicine, hence, compared with the second doctor, he will be more skillful, in coping with some problems concerning sports such as the muscle strains. As a result, the results of study can reflect little about the function of the antibiotics. The last aspect is about the sugar pill. The arguer can not rule out this condition, in which it is the sugar pill of the second group, which prolongs the whole time of recovering, nut not the antibiotics in the first group, which shorten the time of recovering. Hence, we cannot believe the results of the study quoted by the arguer in the article.
Last but not the least, the arguer has made a hasty conclusion at the end of this article. An important condition has been ignored by the arguer when he made the conclusion. Because common sense tells us that before taking a kind of medicine formally, we must be tested that whether we have an allergic reaction to the medicine, thus, the arguer commits a serious fallacy in recommending people to take antibiotics. If not testing, maybe the antibiotics will worsen some patients' conditions, which should be avoided absolutely.
In summary, the arguer has made his last conclusion on the basis of several unwarranted assumptions and unfounded study, all of which would make his conclusion questionable. In order to strengthen his last conclusion, the arguer has to provide much more information concerning the ratios of suffering secondary infections and many details on the study listed above. Only by doing this, can the arguer make his reasoning process more credible logically. |
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