Argument 53: Thirteen years ago, researchers studied a group of 25 infants who~~~

[LouisLin]

53 Thirteen years ago, researchers studied a group of 25 infants who showed signs of mild distress when exposed to unfamiliar stimuli such as an unusual odor or a tape recording of an unknown voice. They discovered that these infants were more likely than other infants to have been conceived in early autumn, a time when their mothers' production of melatonin—a hormone known to affect some brain functions—would naturally increase in response to decreased daylight. In a follow-up study conducted earlier this year, more than half of these children—now teenagers—who had shown signs of distress identified themselves as shy. Clearly, increased levels of melatonin before birth cause shyness during infancy and this shyness continues into later life.

The argument is that children will show the sighs of distress indentified themselves as shy because these children’s mothers product melatonin when they are pregnant. The independent valuable, melatonin which is produced by children’s mothers is positive cause for dependent valuable, the character of children, shyness. Besides, the argument also gave us a conclusion that this effect will last for long time not only in infancy but also in adolescence. However, the argument is not cogent. From my pint of view, the cause and effect relationships in this argument are ambiguous
. In addition, the samples in this argument are too few evidences to demonstrate its standpoint. Moreover, this argument doesn’t take many important factors into consideration and is possible to oversimplify the cause of children’s shyness. In the following paragraphs, I will point out several fallacies of this argument.

First of all, the argument told us that the infants will be shy when their mothers produce melatonin in early autumn. Besides, the argument also revealed the information that this melatonin is a hormone known to affect some brain functions. Notwithstanding this statement is sound apparently, I regard this ratiocination as false. To detail the above criticism, although the argument said the melatonin could affect brain functions, the argument didn’t point out the fact that this hormone affected whose brains. That is to say, maybe this melatonin affect mothers’ brain functions instead of infants or children’s brain functions. Besides, the argument also didn’t detailed illuminate why the melatonin could have influence on infants and children’s character, shyness. That’s why the argument is not fully trustworthy.

Secondly, the argument only provided twenty-five samples for us to prove that its inference is right. However, according to statistics principles, we all know 25 samples are too few to generalize all people. In other words, instead generalize its population, few samples only explain itself. On account of statistics knowledge, we can know that these 25 children may be the particular cases which can prove that melatonin has impact on children’s character, shyness. If the argument wants to persuade us to convince its statement, it should provide more fair researches and investigations rather than only provided only 25 samples.

Thirdly, the argument didn’t take many key factors in account to explain children’s characters. To be frank with you, I prefer to believe socialization has greater influence on children’s characters than melatonin, hormone and gene. It is obvious that using biology to explain human behaviors and characters is ridiculous and obsolete. On the contrary, human behaviors and characteristics always influence by social factors. To elucidate the above descriptions, infants always affected by parents so that infants characters are possible affected by their parents’ tutelages and values. Besides, kids and juveniles also deeply influence by their peer group; therefore, children and teenagers’ characters usually mold by their friends and classmates. No matter what kind socialization is carried out in infancy, children and adolescence, it indeed has great influence on children’s characters. From what is mentioned above, we can realize that the argument didn’t take the most key factor, socialization, into consideration. The argument attributed vapid factor, melatonin, to children’s character, shyness and made hasty conclusion that melatonin was the only factor that affected children’s shyness. Therefore, we can understand this argument is silly and of no value.

In conclusion, the argument is full of false statement. This argument provided too few samples to prove its point view so that it is not compelling enough. Moreover, the argument not only was vague in its explanations but didn’t take key factor into account and made hasty and glaringly erroneous conclusion as well. Therefore, the argument is absurd.

[samarfadl]

hi LouisLin!

i read thy argument and have the following comments.

1) There are some grammatical and spelling mistakes in the arg.

2) in thy analysis u say that the

"argument told us"

i would prefer if u say "the author" instead of "the argument" bcz in fact the author of the argument is the one arguing for his point of view.

3)

To be frank with you

in your argument try not to address the readers of the argument, it makes the argument less formal.

4)

characters is ridiculous and obsolete

this argument is silly and of no value

.

the argument is absurd.

in thy argument try not to use strong language, there is no need to attack the argument or the author violently. try to prove thy point without belittling the author or the argument.

in general thy argument is very good and comprehesive, u have covered all the points in the argument. i couldn't think of more points to cover.
thy structre and organization are very good.

nice work LouisLin

[rockybalboa123]

I think these points can also be included.

1. what was the sex, nationality or which part of the world were the children. these points very much effect the personality..

2. Did researchers study together each child or all children were studied by all researchers, this proves vital because the interpretation of each researcher might have been different if the researchers are themselves from different soil.(different geographies.)

3. author says.. 30 years ago the children were studied and now they are teenagers.. frankly i could not understand that how the author calls a 30+ years person a teenager.. when he would have become a well grown man..

Please comment on my ponits too..

[grabanca]

Well, that's 13 not 30

Anyway I am thinking of the following arguments:

1. is it not normal for an infant to be distressed when hearing unknown voices? the argument does not show a comparison between these infants and other ones.

2. similar to above: what percentage of teenagers are shy overall according to researcher's standards. shy is not easy to define absolutely; it has to be defined relative to 'normal' kids.

3. the shyness of the teenagers might have a complete unrelated cause. those kids have something in common: they were born in fall of the same year and are probably from the same country so they might have been exposed to similar events in their childhood (an earthquake when they were young, parents stressed because of bad economy, different style of education)

4. even if children born during fall would end up being more shy than others, there might be other 1000 obscure reasons for that (like they were always first to have their birthday in the new school year).

[LouisLin]

Hello~rockbalboa123 and geabanca, both of your points are very constructive. Thank you for providing the other paths that I have never seen.^^