Paleo diets, in which one eats how early hominids (human ancestors) did, are becoming increasingly popular. Proponents claim our bodies evolved to eat these types of food, especially bone broth, a soup made by cooking animal bones for several hours. They believe it has many health-promoting nutrients, such as cartilage, which can heal our joints, and chondroitin, which promotes nerve regeneration. Skeptics point out that ingested cartilage can’t replenish cartilage in your knees or elbows and ingested chondroitin doesn’t make our brains any healthier. Yet, there is strong anecdotal evidence that people who consume bone broth have fewer metabolic and inflammatory diseases than those who don’t. Therefore, ancient humans knew something about our physiology that we don’t, and that by emulating the way they ate, we can cure many chronic illnesses.
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.
While lowering the incidence of disease in our population is certainly a positve thing, we must be careful in assuming cause and effect. Arguing that ancient hominids had extensive knowledge of human physiology, and that re-creating their diets will surely cure us of modern disease poses several issues.
To state that our ancestors knew more about our physiology than we do today is quite bold and presents a flawed argument. This claim is based off of the fact that comsuming bone broth yields beneficial results, but it assumes that the hominids followed this diet purely for it's health benefits. There is no evidence to suggest that they drank this broth for any reason besides convenience or neccessity. In the paleolithic era our ancestors had not even invented agriculture - let alone modern medical techniques. It is much more logical to assume that they drank this broth as a result of their hunter-gather lifestyle, not letting any part of their hunt go to waste. The health benefits of this broth were certainly a postive side effect, perhaps one that allowed our ancestors to further thrive and evolve into modern humans. The claim that hominids knew something we did not about our own physiology might hold true if there were some evidence suggesting they drank the broth by choice, not by neccessity, perhaps in the form of a cave drawing or something of the sort. Until then however, it is illogical to state such a claim based off of unrequited assumptions.
Secondly, the author of this argument states that if we emulate the hominid's diet we can cure many chronic illnesses. This claim is unjustified as it relies heavily on assumed cause and effect - from the evidence provided in the passage, there is no way to prove that bone broth is curing these illnesses. Arguing that people who consume bone broth have fewer metabolic disease than those who do not opens up a whole host of issues; those who consume this broth are much more likely to be health-concious in general, they are wealthier, they have a higher socioeconimic status allowing them more access to health care, and so on. Perhaps if the author had cited studies that yielded results supporting the specific health benefits of bone broth, then cause and effect could be conferred, however until such a study is conducted this argument relies far too heavily on unjustified assumptions.
The author of this paragraph has the beginnings of a potentially sound argument, however to make such strong claims based on assumptions without evidence leaves the reader unconvinced.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2092 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.911 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.567 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.831 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.53 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 401, Rule ID: DONT_NEEDS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'open'?
Suggestion: open
...metabolic disease than those who do not opens up a whole host of issues; those who co...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, while, in general, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 28.8173652695 180% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2142.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.02816901408 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65958057843 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.528169014085 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 677.7 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 62.139484674 57.8364921388 107% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.8 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.4 23.324526521 122% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.66666666667 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.162974798562 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0584457768414 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0312399788892 0.0701772020484 45% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0844698037916 0.128457276422 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0548250597066 0.0628817314937 87% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.84 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.