Argument35 【0906G 文以载道三月四月小组】第一周第二次作业 thanks luyaoxu

gewangUID: 2186573

[题目]
Argument35
Thefollowing appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by theresidents of Mentia.
"Salicylates（水杨酸脂） are members of the same chemicalfamily as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods arenaturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades food-processingcompanies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. Thisrise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with asteady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants inour twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found thatsalicylates can also be used as flavor additives（食品香料） for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we canexpect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by theaverage citizen of Mentia."
水杨酸酯和用来治疗头痛的药物--阿司匹林是同一类化合物。尽管很多食品天然富含水杨酸酯，过去几十年中食品加工公司仍然在食品中加入它来作为防腐剂。这种水杨酸酯在商业上的使用被发现与我们为期20年研究的参加者所报告的头痛发病的平均数量下降是相关的。最近，食品加工公司发现水杨酸酯也可以被用作食品香料。根据这种水杨酸酯的新用途，我们可以预期Mentia居民患头痛症的数量将会持续稳步下降。
[提纲]
1)Salicylates 是否能治疗头疼；
2) 头疼下降是否是由于在食物中加入了Salicylates (他因+是不是所有的头疼事件都被报道了)
3) 新的方案不一定能保证头疼人数的进一步下降 (S是不是越多越好, 其他原因加重头疼)
[正文]
In this argument, the author draws the deduction that the number of headache ssuffered by the citizen of Mentia will be steady decrease with the use of salicylates as flavor additives, based on the information that salicylatesshare the same chemical family as aspirin, and over the past 20 years the number of headaches declined has been found associated with the rise in commercial use of salicylates. This argument sounds reasonable at the firstglance. It is in fact ill-convinced as the following several reasons.

First, there is no evidence showing that salicylates treat or decline headaches. The fact that salicylates and aspirin are members of the same chemical family can only be sure they have similar construction,rather than the same medical usage. In comparison to using as a separatemedicine, do salicylates have the same medical effect after adding it to food?After reacting with some ingredients in food, salicylates may lose its drugeffect of treating headaches, and even have totally opposite effect-leading tomore serious headaches. Without more information about salicylates' medical property, it is hardly to make people believe that salicylates can treat headaches.

In addition, even if salicylates can treat headaches, there is no casual relationship between the rise in the use of adding salicylates to foods as preservatives and the steady decline in the average number of headaches reported. The author did not rule out the possibility that people who sufferedheadaches did not report to the study. What's more, the author fails in take into account other reasons for the steady decline of the number of headaches,such as the development of medical technology, the good turning of environment,the more regular and healthy life-style people have. In short, lacking of these information, the author's argument is highly doubted.

Finally,although the rise of using salicylates is correlated to a steady decline inheadache cases, the author fails to mention whether too much salicylates willhave any harmful effect. The overdose of the usage of salicylates may bring more serious headache problems to people, especially to those who do not suffer headaches at all, which will bring about a rising number among people who suffer headache.Furthermore, the more quickening rhythm of life and the more stressful workwill also be the reasons for an increasing number of headaches. Therefore, the measure of using salicylates as flavor additive for foods is unwarranted to deduce a continuedsteady decline in the number of headaches.

In sum, the author's assessment that the number of headaches will decline seems logical at first. However, before any conclusion is made, the author needs to supply more details about scientific research on the medical property of salicylates to support his/her vague deduction.


[参考链接]
https://bbs.gter.net/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=908726&extra=page%3D2


[ 本帖最后由 gewang 于 2009-1-15 03:16 编辑 ]