Argument 101, Move to smaller towns for healthier life

betterGT

101. There is now evidence that the relaxed pace of life in small towns promotes better health and greater longevity than does the hectic pace of life in big cities.
Businesses in the small town of Leeville report fewer days of sick leave taken by individual workers than do businesses in the nearby large city of Masonton. Furthermore, Leeville has only one physician for its one thousand residents, but in Masonton the proportion of physicians to residents is five times as high. Finally, the average age of Leeville residents is significantly higher than that of Masonton residents. These findings suggest that people seeking longer and healthier lives should consider moving to small communities.

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.

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Fallacies
1. one-vs.-all (two town comparison cannot expand to all towns and cities)
2. days of sick leave can measure the healthiness of a city/town
3. physicians vs. patients ratio can also be a measurement


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The passage argues that small communities provide better health and greater longevity. Although the author provides research evidence and statistics to support his/her argument, his/her assumptions of using these evidences are questionable.

First of all, by using the argument of the research evidence, the author assumes that all small towns are relaxed and all big cities are busy.  The author also assumes that the comparison of Leeville and Masonton applies to all of the small towns-large cities comparisons. In fact, not all of the small towns are on the same pace, and neither are the big cities. For example, Seattle is a relatively relaxed city compared to New York, and Palo Alto can be a busier town than Salt Lake City. One cannot use a specific case to generalize to the entire category without careful sampling and analyses.

Second, the author assumes that the days of sick leave could measure the rate of healthiness. This data might be able to represent to some extend the healthy ratio of the city or town, yet the author fails to regularize the data in order to make an unbiased comparison. For instance, we need information about the allowable days of sick leave. If the allowable days of sick leave in Leeville are in general less than that in Masonton, then this measurement is not valid. Also, one should look at how people use days of sick leave. If the rules in Masonton are looser than that in Leeville, one can expect that Masonton's data be inflated. As a result, a regularized data is required to become a valid measurement of the healthiness of a town or a city.

Third, it assumes that fewer days of sick leave indicate a healthier life. Despite the validation procedure provided above, this assumption is still doubtable. After all, days of attendance and sick leave are related to more factors than health. It could because that people in Leeville are more diligent than those in Masonton; or there are more local holidays in Leeville than in Masonton so Leevillians can take days off in the holidays; or the doctors in Masonton only work on weekdays, whereas Leeville doctors work on both weekends and weekdays. Above all, making money and getting promotion might be more important to people in Leeville than those in Masonton, so that they work harder and take fewer days of leave.

Fourth, the assumption that the physicians to residents’ ratio can be a measure for longevity is also lacking of sufficiency. It could because that there is a medical school in the city that many students decide to start their clinic or to work as a physician in the city. In this case the work load of physicians in the city might be lower than those in the town, opposing the author's first assumption that life pace in little towns are all slower than those in the larger cities.

In general, the assumptions that the author provided cannot support his/her argument sufficiently. More detailed analyses of the data and the research is required before the assumptions are made. For example, the author can look at more small towns and big cities via statistical vehicle, and then starts to make further assumptions based on that result.

普渡哥

写的挺好，结构可以优化，比如fourth可以换成finally。

不过这样也不错，至少没有模板嫌疑：）

betterGT

谢谢回复！那写到这样的字数够么？有没有不够深入的毛病？会不会觉得太干？