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The following appeared in an article in a consumer-products magazine:
“Two of today’s best-selling brands of full-strength prescription medication for the relief of excess stomach acid, Acid-Ease and Pepticaid, are now available in milder nonprescription forms. Doctors have written 76 million more
prescriptions for full-strength Acid-Ease than for full-strength Pepticaid. So people who need an effective but milder nonprescription medication for the relief of excess stomach acid should choose Acid-Ease.”

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.



The excerpt is taken from an article that appeared in consumer-products magazine in which the author claims that the people who need an effective but milder non-prescription medication for relief from excess stomach acid should choose Acid-Ease as the doctors have written 76million more prescriptions for the medicine’s full strength form in comparison to Pepticaid. However, the author does not provide any evidence or details of his study supporting his claim. So, the argument is weak and unconvincing and has several flaws.

Firstly, the author’s reasoning about choosing Acid-Ease over Pepticaid on the basis of 76million more prescriptions written by doctors for full strength medicine does not hold any grounds as more prescription does not prove the effectiveness of the medicine in any way. There can be other reasons such as, the availability of the medicine in the pharmacies in one particular region at that time or the commission that the doctor would be getting out of the sales of that medicine. Hence, it is difficult to say, with certainty, what exactly can lead to prescribing one medicine more than the other while both of the brands are the best-selling ones.

Secondly, the author assumes a correlation between full strength form and the milder form of the medicines and arrives at a conclusion whereas both these forms are different and in no way sales of milder forms can be predicted from the sales of its full strength form. So, here again, the author’s assumption is not supported by any clear evidence to prove his claim.

Finally, these are not the only two deciding factors to arrive at a conclusion. There are several other contributing factors which can affect the purchasing decision of the consumer. For instance the price of the medicine, suitability of one medicine over the other in terms allergy and reactions for each individual. Choice of a product, including medicine, depends on various factors and not just one factor. However, the author’s conclusion is based on just one factor which leaves the reader with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking.

In summary, it can be noticed that the author does not provide any evidence to support his claim about the effectiveness of one medicine over the other. Lack of suitable evidence and the data makes the argument weak and unconvincing, If the author had provided the details of his study and research to prove the effectiveness of Acid-Ease over Pepticaid, his argument would have been strengthened to an extent. However, the argument, in its current form, is weak and flawed and hence, unpersuasive.