Hi, can anyone help me to assess the argument essays that I have written?
Thank you so much and have a great day ahead!
Quote:
The following appeared as part of a letter to the editor of a scientific journal.
"A recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys provides clues as to the effects of birth order on an individual's levels of stimulation. The study showed that in stimulating situations (such as an encounter with an unfamiliar monkey), firstborn infant monkeys produce up to twice as much of the hormone cortisol, which primes the body for increased activity levels, as do their younger siblings. Firstborn humans also produce relatively high levels of cortisol in stimulating situations (such as the return of a parent after an absence). The study also found that during pregnancy, first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than did those who had had several offspring."
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.
My Essay is the following:
Quote:
In the arguments presented above, the writer tries to justify his point about the correlation between birth order of an individuals and their corresponding levels of stimulation. While the explanations offered above might seem valid at a first glance, I believe that there are alternative arguments that renders author’s claims invalid.
Firstly, the experiment that the writer used to justify his argument might not be enough to conclude the causation between ( the ) birth of order and level of stimulations within rhesus monkeys. In conducting experiments, one must not confuse correlations that they observe with causation, as there might be numerous confounding factors which causes the experiments to behave a certain way. As the number of rhesus monkey involved within the experiments is small, It might be the case that the firstborn produces more cortisol due to it’s gender, age, or experiment (experimental ) conditions. It is possible that the other monkeys have low cortisol due to their current age - they have not developed good eyesights, and thus unable to recognize unfamilliar monkeys clearly. Without taking into account the controls of the experiment, the conclusion from this experiment might be unjustifiable.
Secondly, the writer extrapolates the claim from the rhesus monkey experiment to human. He argued that firstborn humans are also stimulated when they encounter exciting situations. However, in the paragraph above, the level of stimulation on the younger ones are not specified. It might be the case that all humans stimulate the similar level of cortisol when they encounter these situations, regardless of their birth order. This will render the claim made by the writer invalid. It is also not shown how close does physical and psychiological behaviour of the rhesus monkey in resembling human’s. Even though both of them are mammals, it is well known that experiments done in an animal might not hold the same expected efffects when it is done in human. Therefore, even though the order of birth do affect the level of stimuation in monkeys, the same situatuion might not hold true for an individual.
Lastly, the writer explains that first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than those who had children before. I argue that this point might not explain writer’s claim well. During pregnancy, we do not know whether the level of hormones between the mother and the baby is correlated or not. If the increase of hormones in the mother does not induce the babies’ hormone, then the last statement have (has) no impact on the writer’s argument
I believe that a more thorough study is needed to make the writer’s argument to be acceptable. Firstly, relationship between the physical condition of human and monkeys has to be well established. Secondly, the experiments performed on the rhesus monkey must result in causality conclusion. A mere observation from the experiment is not enough to be a compelling argument for the claim given by the writer.
14 May 2019, 06:57 
