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要求：
Directions: Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.
The following appeared in the Sherwood Times newspaper.
“A recent study reported that pet owners have longer, healthier lives on average than do people who own no pets. Specifically, dog owners tend to have a lower incidence of heart disease. In light of these findings, Sherwood Hospital should form a partnership with Sherwood Animal Shelter to institute an ‘adopt-a-dog\' program. The program would encourage dog ownership for patients recovering from heart disease, which will help reduce medical costs by reducing the number of these patients needing ongoing treatment. In addition, the publicity about the program will encourage more people to adopt pets from the shelter, which will reduce the risk of heart disease in the general population.”
范文：
The writer of this newspaper article relies on a study and a variety of assumptions to convince us of the merits of a partnership between Sherwood Hospital and Sherwood Animal Shelter. A cursory inspection reveals a number of poor assumptions and hasty misinterpretations of the available data.
The writer\'s most troublesome error comes from his apparent interpretation of the “recent study” which suggests that pet owners live longer lives, and that dog owners in particular have a lower incidence of heart disease. The obvious rebuttal is that this may simply be a case of correlation without causation, or reverse causation. In other words, are pet owners healthier because they own pets, or do they own pets because they are healthier? We have no evidence to indicate what the truth may be. It may be indeed that people with more free time (i.e. a third factor) have, as a consequence of the free time, more health and more of an opportunity to keep a dog.
In particular, when the writer suggests that adopting dogs will reduce the ongoing medical costs of heart disease patients, we should be skeptical. Even if the study cited proves there is a salubrious effect in owning a dog—which it most certainly does not—then we still don\'t know if this effect is curative or merely preventative. In other words, just because owning a dog might help prevent heart disease, it doesn\'t mean that it will cure heart disease once one already has developed it.
Furthermore, who is to say that heart disease patients will be “encouraged” to participate in the “adopt-a-dog” program? While recovering from a serious disease, taking responsibility for an animal may be the last thing on a patient\'s mind. We cannot assume that sufficient numbers of patients will participate in the program for it to be a success, and thus we cannot assume that the ongoing costs of treatment will be reduced.
Short of seeing some evidence of the successful promotion of similar programs, we must not assume that the “adopt-a-dog” program will appeal to the broader community, especially if it does not succeed in lowering medical costs among the heart disease patients. Those not already suffering from a disease are often inclined, after all, to ignore the benefits of treatments that do not apply to them. Few people, for instance, obtain flu shots until it is too late, though they are widely available.
In sum, the argument is weak. To improve it, the author should cite a conclusive causative and not correlative study, one which shows that owning a dog has a curative and not simply preventative effect on heart disease. The writer should also give evidence that patients would be willing to participate in the program, and that the publicity of the program would encourage people from the general population to participate. Only then will his argument for establishing the “adopt-a-dog” program be successful.