123. The following appeared in a health newsletter. "A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of accidents caused by bicycling has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus, there is clearly a call for the government to strive to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents by launching an education program that concentrates on the factors other than helmet use that are necessary for bicycle safety." Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The argument appeals for an education program about bicycle safety ratherthan a requirement of helmet use in order to reduce the number of seriousinjuries from bicycle accidents, based on the premise that bicyclists feelsafer wearing helmets, which leads to an increasing number of bicycle-relatedaccidents. It seems logical, at the first glance, to agree with the recommendation;however, to fully evaluate its validation, a number of questions should beanswered.
Firstly, by citing two studies about the helmet use and bicycle accidents,the author of the argument intends to conclude that the increased helmet useresults in more accidents. However, the argument fails to provide informationabout where the two studies are conducted and who answered the surveys. Are thetwo studies conducted in the same places? If the first one is a nationalwidestudy, investigating all the states in the US, but the second one taken placeonly in one of the states, the conclusion will be highly suspect. For example,the average rate of helmet use nationalwide increased by 55% in the past tenyears, but that of California, the place the second survey is conducted, wherebicycle-related accidents has increased 200%, perhaps drops 20%. In this case,we can hardly come to the conclusion that the increased use of helmet iscorrelated with the escalated number of bicycle accidents.
Even both surveys are operated in exact the same places and there is noholes of sample selecting and investigating approaches, we still cannot drawthe causality between helmet use and number of accidents simplistically, forthe surveys only show us the correlation, rather than the causality. It is a fallaciousreasoning unless other possible causal explanations have been considered andruled out. For example, do they take risks, such as running a red light andspeeding, just because their life paces move faster, rather than the safetyfeeling with a helmet? Do most of the bicycle-related accidents occur due tothe risk-taking behavior of bicyclists? Accidents are likely to be caused by anincreasing number of cars and busier traffic. Lack of information to rule outthese kinds of alternative explanations, the final conclusion that the wider helmetuse results in more accidents is unconvincing.
Another questions necessary to be clear in order to assess the validity ofthe argument is whether the serious injuries from bicycle accidents haveincreased or decrease in the past ten years. The author only mentions that thebicycle-related accidents hikes, which is different from the serious injuries.Perhaps, inconsequential accidents, like light conflicts or slight crashes,occur more frequently as the density of population grows. However, thanks tothe protection of helmets, serious injuries decrease dramatically. In thiscase, calling on education program that focuses on the factors other thanhelmet use, the recommendation goes in the opposite directions. The governmentshould keep on encouraging and requiring bicyclists to wear helmets, instead.
In sum, it might be necessary to launch a program educating people aboutbicycle safety, but the argument is rift with holes and shaky assumptions. Ifthe author provides evidences that verify the both studies are conducted in thesame places, rules out casual explanations of increased accidents other thanhelmet use, shows the serious injuries increase rapidly, the argument will bemore persuasive. Otherwise, the government should not adopt the recommendationto less on encouraging helmet use. | 
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发表于 2012-9-5 16:25:49
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