A recent study indicates that children living in the Himalayan mountain region in Nepal have lower levels of tooth decay than children living in suburban areas in the United States, despite the fact that people in the Himalayan mountain region in Nepal receive little to no professional dental care, while people in suburban areas in the United States see a dentist an average of 1.25 times per year. Thus, regular dental care is not helpful in preventing tooth decay.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The author puts forward an argument that regular dental care is not useful in prevention of tooth decay. He basis his argument on the premise that since the children in Nepal living in Himalayan mountain region have lower levels of tooth decay despite no dental care.However, his argument suffers from a number of flaws which include unjustified assumption, narrow sample size, flawed analogy etc.
Firstly, the author makes a wrong assumption not visiting to professional dentist is the only factor that determines the health of the tooth. So, by showing that people of Nepal keep their tooth healthy without any access to professional dental care, he concludes that regular dental care is not helpful in prevention of tooth decay.An alternative explanation can be that Nepalese resort to traditional home remedies to take care of their tooth, which are effective enough to obviate the need to visit a dentist.By withdrawing the only access to proper dental care people in US could be even more Worse off.
Secondly, study which the author used to strengthen his premise is based on narrow sample size of children. He goes on to extrapolate the data to all age groups in Nepal and United States. An alternative explanation could be that Children in Nepal have small genetic advantage than those in US. They may have better eating habits, access to effective home remedies.
In addition to the problem of small sample size and extrapolation, there is the problem of flawed analogy. The author is comparing two regions with different geographical features and levels of economic development. It is possible living in Himalayan region which is pristine and free from pollution can have a salubrious effect on the young children of Nepal as compared to US. There is no way to justify that the two regions can be similar.
In conclusion, author's argument suffers from a number of flaws which include unjustified assumption, narrow sample size, flawed analogy etc. These flaws give scope for a number of alternative explanations which could plausible
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argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK. It is relatively similar to argument 1: 'They may have better eating habits, access to effective home remedies.' An alternative explanation is that: children from the United States enjoy junk food, chocolates and other delicacies that could lead to tooth decay, children from Nepal may not have the access to these food items. It is possible that they enjoy a fresh sugarcane, fruits or other items which do not cause much harm to tooth. As a result, they do not require much dental care. Even though dental care is limited in Nepal, the need for dental care is also limited.
argument 3 -- not OK. An alternative explanation is that: people in suburban areas in the United States see a dentist an average of 1.25 times per year not for tooth decay, but for something else related to teeth pain like tooth extraction, root canal treatment or the use of braces
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Attribute Value Ideal
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Category: Satisfactory Excellent
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No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
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