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.
Before we can evaluate claims about the benefits of a particular diet, it’s important to tease apart where the science ends and the mythology begins. The argument that bone broth can help treat diseases because it’s a food that human ancestors ate depends on a variety of assumptions. There is no way to evaluate the strength of the argument without understanding what the assumptions are, whether they are valid or not, and what the impact would be on the argument if they turn out to be unfounded.
The most significant assumption made in this argument is that human ancestors ate in a healthy way. We can only guess what early human physiology was like and how it compares to the physiology of contemporary humans. Similarly, the argument assumes that food today is similar to food hundreds of thousands of years ago. Assuming that physiology and food are comparable, we must then assume that they will interact in the same way. The only evidence provided seems to be that bone broth has the mystique of ancient times, and people enjoy the fantasy of being connected to a timeless history.
Another important assumption related to human history is that early humans lived healthy lives. Surely the way humans evolved to eat is the most salubrious diet possible, the argument claims. There is anecdotal evidence that those who eat a paleo diet have lower rates of inflammatory diseases, but we must assume that there is a causal connection. Maybe those without those diseases prefer paleo diets for some other reason, or there may be a strong placebo effect. Ultimately, the argument assumes that anecdotal evidence without a properly controlled study is sufficient to conclude that eating a certain way will cure disease.
The argument brings up two potential nutrients found in bone broth, but never addresses the objections that these nutrients cannot be processed by the body. The assumption is that this problem is not important. Maybe the author assumes that the nutrients will find a way to get to where they are needed. Or maybe other as-of-yet unidentified nutrients are in the bone broth that can be absorbed. Fundamentally, the argument assumes that even though there is contrary evidence now, a convincing story about cave people is enough justification to ignore that evidence. The only positive evidence is that early humans must have known something, most likely without realizing it. The assumption is that as humans evolved, they would have eventually landed on healthy diets, that they must have existed in balance with nature. Despite the lack of evidence, the argument still assumes that humans today can and should emulate the original diet in order to achieve this balance again.
Ultimately, every step of the argument is based on assumptions that make up for the lack of evidence. If we assume that all of the assumptions are true, then it will be safe to draw the conclusion that paleo diets will help cure disease. However, without any evidence to help determine whether these assumptions are valid, there is no way to verify any of the claims, let alone the grand claim at the end. If any implication proves to be unwarranted, then we will not be able to conclude that paleo diets can treat disease.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 543 350
No. of Characters: 2634 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.827 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.851 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.546 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 176 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.72 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.076 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.4 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.293 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.483 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 102, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... something about our physiology that we dont, and by emulating the way they ate, we ...
^^^^
Line 1, column 326, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...and inflammatory disease than those who dont and that bone broth also has many healt...
^^^^
Line 5, column 169, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...nd inflammatory diseases than those who dont is reliable . It is possible that the t...
^^^^
Line 5, column 185, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...diseases than those who dont is reliable . It is possible that the the evidence is...
^^
Line 5, column 208, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
... dont is reliable . It is possible that the the evidence is maybe from a survey that do...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 208, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
... dont is reliable . It is possible that the the evidence is maybe from a survey that do...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 12.9520958084 23% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 27.0 55.5748502994 49% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1747.0 2260.96107784 77% => OK
No of words: 335.0 441.139720559 76% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.21492537313 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.27820116611 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97772430714 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 152.0 204.123752495 74% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.453731343284 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 544.5 705.55239521 77% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 60.0522394932 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 91.9473684211 119.503703932 77% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.6315789474 23.324526521 76% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.31578947368 5.70786347227 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.109850065221 0.218282227539 50% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0359527898861 0.0743258471296 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0407725485643 0.0701772020484 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.067957797163 0.128457276422 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0515072908134 0.0628817314937 82% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.64 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.73 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.