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The following appeared in a business magazine.
"As a result of numerous complaints of dizziness and nausea on the part of consumers of Promofoods tuna, the company requested that eight million cans of its tuna be returned for testing. Promofoods concluded that the canned tuna did not, after all, pose a health risk. This conclusion is based on tests performed on samples of the recalled cans by chemists from Promofoods; the chemists found that of the eight food chemicals most commonly blamed for causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea, five were not found in any of the tested cans. The chemists did find small amounts of the three remaining suspected chemicals but pointed out that these occur naturally in all canned foods."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.
The conclusion made in the business magazine that the canned tuna, which were produced by company Promofoods(PF), did not pose a health risk may seem plausible at first glance. To strengthen the conclusion, the test result of those returned canned tuna was added to the statement. However, closer scrutiny of the evidence given in the statement reveals nothing about the validity of the conclusion but its inaccurate and untenable assertion.
First, the chemists checked eight chemicals that were commonly blamed. However, no more information in the statement about the components of the canned tuna is provided. Perhaps it was other substances other than those eight chemicals that caused the dizziness and nausea. If chemists only checked those 8 chemicals, it was possible that they ignored other potential noxious substances. Therefore, to strengthen the statement, the speaker must provide detailed information about the components of the food. Otherwise, it might not be convincing enough to make a conclusion that hastily.
Second, the statement mentions that no tested cans found those 5 chemicals, therefore all canned tuna made by PF contained no such substances. Nevertheless, how many cans were tested in the experiment is unknown. There is no information about the number of tested cans. The statement mentions that eight million cans were return. Yet perhaps only several hundred cans or even less were tested. If it was the case, the conclusion is untenable because only a small portion of cans were tested. Therefore, the speaker must provide information about the ratio of tested cans to all. If there is no information in the statement, it would be confusing and misleading for many consumers.
Finally, even assuming above two problems can be mitigated, the speaker is still too brusque to assert his or her conclusion. Although those three chemicals are common in all canned food, the quantity, or the concentration is not mentioned in the statement. It is obvious that overdosed substances may be poisonous. Thus, the statement should have information about the concentration of those 3 chemicals found in PF’s canned tuna as well as the safe concentration data about them. However, nothing referring to this issue appears in the statement. Therefore, the conclusion made by the speaker is not that unimpeachable.
To sum up, the speaker is too abrupt and hasty to make such a unconvincing and misleading conclusion. To strengthen his or her conclusion, the speaker must provide more information such as the components of the food, the ratio of tested cans to all, and the result of three substances. Equipped with these detailed information, the speaker can make the conclusion accurate, otherwise the statement is untenable and wrong.
刚好30min完成，440words。。。望同学们给点意见，离考试不远了，求狠拍 |
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发表于 2011-10-14 19:43:47
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