argument 200 【7\8\9\10】 (第23次作业)

野猪大改造UID: 2484392

TOPIC: ARGUMENT200 - Statistics collected from dentists indicate that three times more men than women faint while visiting the dentist. This evidence suggests that men are more likely to be distressed about having dental work done than women are. Thus, dentists who advertise to attract patients should target the male consumer and emphasize both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients.
WORDS: 414          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-8-14 15:02:04

In this argument, the author concludes that dentists who advertise to attract patients should target the male consumers and emphasize both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients.  However, I find this argument contains several fallacies that are open to doubt.

The first problem with this argument is that the author relies on the evidence that dentist indicate that three times more men than women faint while visiting dentist to assume that men are more likely to faint than women. However, the author provides no information regarding the number of women and men, thus we are not convinced that the statistics is representative of all the patients. It is entirely possible that the number of men is more than the number of women, thus even if men faint three times as women, the author cannot draw a conclusion that men are more likely to faint than women.

Even assuming that men are more likely to faint than women, the author also falsely assumes that men are more likely to be distressed about the dental work than women. While the author provides no evidence to substantiate this assumption，the author provides no information regarding the exact cause of faint or the possible symptoms of being distressed is provided. For example, it is entirely possible that men faint because of they are likely to be distressed. Moreover, there is a good chance that women are more likely to be distressed while they have other reactions rather than faint.

Even if the men are more likely to be distressed about the dental work than women, the advertisement which targets the male consumers and emphasizes both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients is not sure to be successful. The reason is simple: the author fails to provide the evidence that female patients are so few that advertisement can ignore them without losing many profits. Moreover, common sense and experience tells us that a dentist's technique to cure patients is a more important factor than the effectiveness of dentists' anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients.

In sum, the argument is flawed in several fallacies. To support the argument, the author should find the exact cause and possible symptoms of faint. To justify this argument, the author should provide evidence to reveal that the statistic collected is representative, and find a better way to advertise.