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题目:The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia. “Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades, food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. This rise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in our twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia. Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
作文: The above article presents the author's opinion about decline in the number of Mentia citizens who suffered from headaches. This argument seems convincing by presenting several evidences. However, the author's conclusion is based on several unproved assumptions. By disproving the unwarranted assumptions, the whole argument can not be true.
The first assumption the author used is that the salicylates is as effective as aspirin, which is a worldwide medicine for headache. However, this is hardly to be a fact. Even through the author states that salicylates belonginging to the same chemical family with aspirin, the slightly modifications in chemical structure can lead to totally different or even opposite functions. If salicylates later is shown had little pharmacological effects on curing headaches, then the whole argument need to be reassessed.
The author also assumes that the correlation between adding salicylates into food and the decline of the headache suffers in the region is valid. However, more evidence is needed to prove it is true. For example, if a survey lead by a prestigious institute which include most of the cases in Mentia can find the salicylates is the cause of the declining number of headache suffers, the assumption can then be prove valid. Otherwise, if such kind of correlation is just based on the author's personal speculation, and there are lots of other factors like improved living conditions which may lead to the decrease of the headache suffers, the argument can hardly be convincing.
Last, even if the above assumptions later can both be proved facts by the author, another unwarranted assumption which the argument is based on is that the food companies would like to use salicylates as flavor additives in their product. The article only mentioned it can be used by food companies. What if the costs are too high for using it as addictives? Or even the customers themselves may not like such addictives as well. The authors assumes that salicylates will be widely used in food industries later is ungrounded. Such, the conclusion that the number of headache suffers will decline is also not warranted.
To sum up, by assuming that salicylates is as effective as famous aspirin and it will help rescue the patients from headaches, the author concludes salicylates is a headache killer. He/She also predicts the decline of the headache suffers by further points out the widely use of salicylates as food flavor addictives. However, all the assumptions the author made seem not solid at all. If all this assumptions proved to be wrong, the author needs to reevaluate this argument. |
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