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Argument 68
A recent study reported that pet owners have longer, healthier lives on average than do people who own no pets. Specifically, dog owners tend to have a lower incidence of heart disease. In light of these findings, Sherwood Hospital should form a partnership with Sherwood Animal Shelter to institute an adopt-a-dog program. The program would encourage dog ownership for patients recovering from heart disease, which should reduce these patients' chance of experiencing continuing heart problems and also reduce their need for ongoing treatment. As a further benefit, the publicity about the program would encourage more people to adopt pets from the shelter. And that will reduce the incidence of heart disease in the general population.
In this argument, the author concludes that in order to decrease the population of heart disease the Sherwood hospital should form a partnership with the Sherwood Animal Shelter to institute an adopt-a-dog program. At first glance, the argument appears to be somewhat reasonable.Actually, further reflection informs me that it has a myriad of flaws and holes.
First and foremost, the author presumptuously assumes that the survey is reliable. But the author fails to tell us the sample size which may be far from sufficient and can hardly represent all the pet owners. There is a highly possibility that the sample size is 5 therefore it cannot represent all the owners. We can also cast serious doubt on the reliability and credibility. Consider, if there are 2000 pet owners are selected In this survey, but there are only 50 of them responded, the result is thereby highly dubious. In order to buttress his claim, the author would have to tell us the sample size and the selection procedure, or he cannot conclude that the pet owners have the less proportion of heart disease.
In addition, even the survey is credible, the author unfairly deem that the other factors, which can also lead to the heart disease, are not exist. It is highly possible that the who are selected in the survey, has a heirloom disease tradition, we cannot assume that pet is the assuage for declining the heart disease. It is also likely that some of there has a good life style or often take some medicine which can inhibit the heart disease. There is still a possibility that those who has less heart disease has a good life style and relax life style which can decrease the possibility of heart disease.
Moreover, the author commits a fallacy called hasty generalization. It is considerably irrational for him to predict that the pet program will definitely build . It is likely that the hospital and the shelter will not reach a agreement so that the program will not build. Even if the program has built, it never suggests that the population of heart disease will decline since there are numerous other factors can give rise to the same result.
In conclusion, this argument actually has several flaws as discussed above. To make this argument more convincing, the author would have to take into every possible factors account and provide more information to evaluate this claim.
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发表于 2011-12-12 20:32:22
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