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60. Glenntown Pets


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Please give me feedback on the logic of my argument, you don't need to comment on anything else, as this would be the most helpful for me. i.e., does what I say logically make sense, and do I effectively address all the fallacies?

 

 

 

 

 

60. Glenntown Pets

 

The following appeared in the health section of Glenntown's local newspaper.

 

 

 

"Several national medical studies suggest that older people who have pets tend to enjoy better health than those who do not have pets: those who have pets have lower rates of high blood pressure and arthritis. It seems clear that having to care for an animal promotes good health for the older person. Therefore, Glenntown should establish a program to give a small pet such as a dog or cat to all of its citizens who are over the age of 65. This will help to insure that our senior citizens enjoy good health and have fewer medical bills."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This argument concludes that Glenntown should establish a program to give its senior citizens small pets to ensure good health. To support his conclusion the author cites a national study suggesting that older people with pets are healthier than those without pets. He further claims that keeping pets will lead to fewer medical bills. At first glance the author's recommendation seems to be a reasonable recommendation since common sense indicates that owning a pet would lead to more physical activity and promote good health. However, a close examination of the argument reveals that the conclusion is fundamentally flawed and it ignores certain assumptions.

 

 

 

The national medical studies themselves are problematic in several respects. First, the age group of the "older people" is not specified, and it is unclear whether this refers to citizens over the age of 65 for which the recommendation is given. Moreover, a person's health is determined by more than just high blood pressure and arthritis, which, in the article, are the only two indicators used to gauge health. The study does not specify what type of pets owned by the people in the study. If they referred to large pets such as a horse or large dog, the author's recommendation to give citizens small pets would be less valid. In addition, the author relies on the unfounded assumption that people with lower rates of high blood pressure and arthritis are healthier than those with higher rates of these two diseases. However, this is not necessarily true, and it is entirely possible that a people who do not have high blood pressure or arthritis suffer from other severe health problems, such as cancer, anemia, bronchitis, or other health problems. The sample size, and how the study was conducted, is unclear. It is entirely possible that this study is too narrow to be widely representative; there is simply not enough information to determine the applicability of the study - the larger the sample size, the more representative the study. Without ruling out the foregoing possibilities and showing that the study is representative, the author's line of reasoning remains questionable.

 

 

 

Furthermore, the author assumes that the good health of the people in the study is attributable, at least partly, to the ownership of pets. Yet the correlation amounts to scant evidence of the claimed cause-and-effect relationship. Perhaps the better health is caused by other factors as well that appeared only in people who own pets but not in other people. For instance, perhaps people who own pets are the people who possess a healthy lifestyle, making them more likely to exercise and have good health. He also fails to consider the possibility that owning pets led to good health, but through a third factor. For instance, perhaps owning pets tends to relieve stress, and it is reduction in stress that leads to a lower incidence of high blood pressure and arthritis. Thus, an indirect factor could have led to better health, a possibility to readily dismissed by the author. The writer clearly needs to establish the causality between owning pets and good health in order to make his argument more persuasive.

 

 

 

Granted that owning small pets leads to better health, the author must demonstrate that the program will be successful and lead to fewer medical bills. Simply giving a dog or a cat to a senior citizen who does not care about his or her health, for example, would be utterly useless. Some pets may carry troubles with them, such as spread diseases, cause chaos in the house, and do other things that could cause intense stress to the citizen, exacerbating any health problems and even cause the owner to develop high blood pressure. Therefore, it is clear that giving a pet to someone does not automatically mean their health will improve, especially if the person was not even motivated to improve his own health in the first place. Admittedly, if people's health improves as a result of owning pets, some of their medical bills may go down. However, the author fails to consider the possibility that new health problems may arise, and the decrease in medical costs for themselves could be offset by an increase in the medical bills for the pets. Owning pets could very well increase health related problems. For instance, if a person has an allergy to cats, owning a cat could lead to large medical bills to treat allergies. Pets can also transmit other deadly diseases to humans, and if the family consists of several people, medical costs would be further compounded rather than reduced. In fact, all pets will incur some medical costs themselves, such as those for routine checkups, rabies shots, and so on. They can be costly to maintain, as the owner may need to spend a large amount of money on food, toys, cages, and so on. Clearly, the author could strengthen his argument by presenting a more convincing case that the program will be successful, perhaps by documenting the medical costs.

 

 

 

Finally, the author fails to consider that there are other ways to achieve good health, such as a well-balanced diet, apt exercise, and healthy lifestyle habits. In fact, a good health is achieved by a combination of these and other methods, which may include the benefits of owning a pet. Because the author does not rule out these alternatives, the soundness of his argument is undermined.

 

 

 

In summary, the argument presented in the newspaper is not completely sound. The evidence in support of the conclusion that people of Glenntown should be given small pets to promote better health does little to prove that conclusion, since it does not address the assumptions raised above. As already explained, the argument can be strengthened by establishing the causality between owning pets and good health, showing that the study is representative, presenting evidence that the program will be effective, and ruling out alternatives to achieve the same goal.

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