The following appeared in a business magazine.
“As a result of numerous complaints of dizziness and nausea on the part of consumers of Promofoods tuna, the company requested that eight million cans of its tuna be returned for testing. Promofoods concluded that the canned tuna did not, after all, pose a health risk. This conclusion is based on tests performed on samples of the recalled cans by chemists from Promofoods; the chemists found that of the eight food chemicals most commonly blamed for causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea, five were not found in any of the tested cans. The chemists did find small amounts of the three remaining suspected chemicals but pointed out that these occur naturally in all canned foods.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.
五問:
(1)“As a result of numerous complaints of dizziness and nausea on the part of consumers of Promofoods tuna, the company requested that eight million cans of its tuna be returned for testing”和“the chemists found that of the eight food chemicals most commonly blamed for causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea, five were not found in any of the tested cans. The chemists did find small amounts of the three remaining suspected chemicals but pointed out that these occur naturally in all canned foods”是事實,“Promofoods concluded that the canned tuna did not, after all, pose a health risk”是結(jié)論,值得反駁嗎?
(2)由 Promofoods 公司自己做的檢測,是否可能不客觀?比如:這些化學家為了避免被追究責任,而得出了一個更有利于自己和本公司的結(jié)論。
(3)Promofoods公司的化學家們僅檢查了被召回的罐頭中的一部分樣品,原文中有沒有給出這部分樣品的選擇標準?你能否想到樣品選擇方面可能會出現(xiàn)的問題?樣品選取是否科學?另外五種未發(fā)現(xiàn)的化學品還是有可能存在于未被抽查的或是已售的罐頭里。
(4)常見的將會產(chǎn)生不良影響的八種食品化學成分,是否已經(jīng)涵蓋了所有應(yīng)該被檢測的范圍?換句話說,Promofoods公司的產(chǎn)品中是否可能含有并不常見的、會導致人們頭暈和惡心的成分呢?
(5)對于三種被檢測到的可能導致不良反應(yīng)的化學品,在原文的論述過程中是否給出了其含量多少的概念?在其他罐頭中也存在的這三種可能導致不良反應(yīng)的化學品,其含量也和被抽查的罐頭一樣嗎?在討論化學品時,有和無是一個維度,含量多少以及質(zhì)量大小又是另一個維度。