Argument76 敬请各位赐教，互拍

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Argument 76.
The following appeared as part of an article in a health and beauty magazine.
"A group of volunteers participated in a study of consumer responses to the new Luxess face cream. Every morning for a month, they washed their faces with mild soap and then applied Luxess. At the end of that month, most volunteers reported a marked improvement in the way their skin looked and felt. Thus it appears that Luxess is truly effective in improving the condition of facial skin."

In the argument, the author claims that the Luxess is truly effective in improving the condition of facial skin. To support the conclusion, the author points out that most volunteers participated the study of the mew Luxess reported a marked improvement in the way their skin look and felt after one month applied. The statement seems plausible; in fact it suffers from several critical fallacies.

To begin with, the argument is based on a questionable study. Does the study is credible and the volunteers are representative? The author tell a little about "a group of volunteers", and it is not provided the quality and quantity, the gender and the age, and so on. Without this detail information, it is hard to convince the credible of the study. What's more, even if the study is representative and credible, one month is too short to make a conclusion for a face cream. And, there is not any data about how many volunteers reported a marked improvement in their skin after applied?

Furthermore, the author fails to provide any evidence or information regarding the volunteers' skin does really improved. Only by some tester reporting or feeling their skin improvement is not enough to support it. It is very likely the psychological influence when they are told they have used an effective face cream that will improve their skin well.

Moreover, the author fails to rule out other possibility that cause the improvement even if the volunteers' skin really improved. In the argument, the author tell us all the participator washed their faces with mild soap, maybe the mild soap play an important role in improving the skin. Besides, the author does not take in account other factors, such as what the volunteer eat, whether the volunteer do any special exercise, how about the volunteers sleep status in the study period. As we know, all the factors will affect the skin condition.

In addition, the author ignores other side effect of the face cream. Whether the face cream is fit for every test or not? Whether some tester fell uncomfortable or not? Whether any tester’s skin status becomes worse or not? If so, even most volunteers report marked improvement in their skin, the author’s conclusion would be seriously weakened.

To sum up, based on what has been discussed and analyzed, it is clearly that the argument is valid and misleading, the conclusion reached in the argument is too presumptuous and hasty to be accepted. To make the argument more convincing, the author would have to provide more effective and credible information to support it.

[ Last edited by staralways on 2005-7-23 at 12:48 ]