argument53 0906G三月底AW“永不言弃”互改小组第一周第三次作业 by6号

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53.Thirteen years ago, researchers studied a group of 25 infants who showed signs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli such as an unusual odor or a tape recording of an unknown voice. They discovered that these infants were more likely than other infants to have been conceived in early autumn, a time when their mothers' production of melatonin-a hormone known to affect some brain functions-would naturally increase in response to decreased daylight. In a follow-up study conducted earlier this year, more than half of these children-now teenagers-who had shown signs of distress identified themselves as shy. Clearly, increased 
levels of melatonin before birth cause shyness during infancy and this shyness continues into later life. 
13年前，研究者研究了一组在受到不熟悉的刺激比如不寻常的气味和未知声音的录音时表现出轻微紧张的25名婴儿。他们发现这些婴儿比其他婴儿更可能在早秋怀孕，而早秋是他们的母亲分泌的melatonin--一种已知会影响一些大脑功能的荷尔蒙--因日照的减少而增加的季节。在今年早些时候所作的跟踪调查中，这些表现出紧张迹象的儿童--现在已经是十几岁--有一半以上认为自己害羞。显然，出生前melatonin的增加导致婴儿期的羞涩并且这种羞涩将延续至生命更晚的阶段。



This argument, as demonstrated above, contains some flaws, which are unreasonable and untenable, leading to a rather ridiculous conslusion at the end. Therefore I would explain and clarify as following. 



Firstly, the number of infants in the experiment conducted thirteen years ago, only studying twenty-five infants, is comparatively few and not enough to build up a conclusion. As is known to us all, the experiment always needs a great deal of samples to store their own situations respectively and then could the statistics be calculated and the assumption or the hypothesis be proved true. However, in this experiment, there were only twenty-five infants as samples which were studied, while the number is not large enough to make the conclusion authoritative, namely the theory concerning the increased levels of melatonin may be utterly incorrect and never applied. Consequently, people should be doubtful towards this experiment with so few samples. 


Secondly, thirteen years is a roughly long time period and it is doubtful whether the results are worth to believe now. Science and technology is always improving, as we know it, and thirteen years may truly be a time long enough that the theories in medicine and physiology may be sheerly different now from thirteen years ago, when the experiment was conducted. Hence, the results then might not be worth to believe now as they could possibly be the negative examples, without the explanation from the contemporary similar experiments. Thus, without the explanation nowadays the results thirteen years ago may not be true now. 


Thirdly, the fact that more than half of the twenty-five teenagers identified themselves as shy may have nothing to do with increased levels of melatonin before birth. Actually, there would be a lot of factors which can influence infants, children and teenagers and plant shyness in their characteristics, and maybe it is not only because of the increased levels of melatonin when they were conceived. Possible alternatives may be including the way that parents educate them, the diseases that they might have caught on, the lifestyles that they are used to etc, not only some hormone problem. Besides, it does only say 'more than half' while we do not actually know the exact number, and there is the possibility that the phenomena just happens at random, not following a certain rule. Consequently, the arguer should study all the possible factors causing shyness. 


To sum up, after careful analysis and discussion, the argument would be more persuasive and convincing if the arguer provides with us the readers more similar experiments with more samples in, the contemporary results to such experiments and the thorough analysis why infants, children and teenagers are shy.