Argument 38 诚心求砖!有砖必必回!!

susan8940UID: 160449

TOPIC: ARGUMENT38 - The following memo appeared in the newsletter of the West Meria Public Health Council.
"An innovative treatment has come to our attention that promises to significantly reduce absenteeism in our schools and workplaces. A study reports that in nearby East Meria, where fish consumption is very high, people visit the doctor only once or twice per year for the treatment of colds. Clearly, eating a substantial amount of fish can prevent colds. Since colds are the reason most frequently given for absences from school and work, we recommend the daily use of Ichthaid, a nutritional supplement derived from fish oil, as a good way to prevent colds and lower absenteeism."

WORDS: 742          TIME: 1:02:55          DATE: 2007-3-8

When it comes to lowing down the absenteeism in schools and workplace, the arguer recommend everyday use of lchthaid to prevent colds. To support his/her viewpoint, he/she gives the example of East Meria people who enjoy fish as the most common dinner and rarly go to see the doctor for colds. Well, I have to say that is an amazing expection if it will really work, however, I must point out that this ideal conclusion is actually based on some unconvincing assumptions which make it totally unwarranted.

To begin with, the author completely failed to prove that people in EM enjoy a better health standard and this owes to the comsume of fish. The author only point out that people visit the doctor only once or twice per year for the curl of colds. But this cannot mean people rarly suffer from cold. Maybe the living standard in EM is not very high, but the expense for treatment is rather huge. If so, of course people would not like to spend most of their money in hospital. Or people in EM may often get colds, and they just get used to it and are able to deal with it on their own. Even though we admit that people in EM do have good health conditions, we cannot say this is totally because they eat too much fish. In actual fact, it is absolutely possible that people keep health because of other reasons. For example, maybe the climate in EM is a little cold, to which people there have adapted, and they are really crazy for doing exercises, swimming in the sea for example, every day, so they rarly get colds, not a bit because they have had much fish.

Moreover, although we assume that people in EM do getting more healthy because of the fish, we cannot conclude that people in city will be the same after the supplement of Ichthaid. On one hand, living condistions in city may be totally different from that in EM. Urban people live in the presents of diverse kinds of pollutions, such as polluted gases, water and the forth. In this way, even dozens of tons of fish may not be able to save those poor guys. Also, people in big city have much higher pressure because of higher efficiency of work and school, which the EM people may completely not be able to understand since they enjoy a comparatively free life style. For that matter, even the fish does work on getting EM people more healthy, it may obviously fail to improve urban people's health condition, thus no reduction of colds. On the other hand, there is little evidence to show that absorbing the Ichthaid thing has the same effect as eating fish. There may be some other substances contributing to prevent people from cold. Or maybe this nutritional element depends on other elements in fish to make a perfect effect. So we cannot know whether it will really work before doing more experiments and researches.

Additionally, the author mistakenly assumes that getting cold is the most frequent reason for people to absent from work and school. But actually, people may get rid of work or school for other reasons, for instance, students may be crazy about some computer games and cannot help keeping playing them for a whole day. Then, what should they do? Certainly, giving teachers a note telling their pain from catching cold, which may be largely possioble to avoid from punishment. For the adult people, on the other hand, they may find their working hours too long for them and suffer from too much pressure and really need to stop and take a rest. In such moment, it is reasonable to call the head of work place and beg for two days of absence for treatment of colds. That is to say, in most cases, people absent from work or school for some other reasons instead of catching cold, but as getting cold is too common for us, they are usually fond of making it as an excuse. Therefore, even the author 's idea can make people more healthy, it may not be able to reduce the absenteeism.

In sum, the author failed to show us more evidences to make his/her assumpsions more convinced, therefore, the conclusion is still quite questionable. If the arguer want to make his/her idea more reliable, some true and all-sided surveys and experiment reports are needed.