The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine."A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of sleep t

The writer of the statement above recommends that in order for businesses to prosper they should only hire people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night. This conclusion is based on a survey claiming that the employees who were not needed to sleep more than six hours per night made their firm more successful. The author makes the conclusion via taking for granted several unsupported assumptions.

To begin with, Secondly, the author recognizes the success of the advertising firms only due to the lesser sleep time of the employees. Such an assumption is highly prone to be a fallacy as there might be myriads of other reasons why the firms are more successful; a resourceful CEO, diligent employees, professional resume, skills, and the education level of the employees. If these are the case, then the sleep patterns of the employees would not be as efficient as the author assumes.

Secondly, even if the advertising company were successful because of the lesser sleep time of the executives, the author hastily assumes that the result of the survey can be generalized to all business jobs. There are three main points missed by the author that preclude the survey to be generalized: the small number of participants, lack of details about the participants, and the limited sample of their occupation. The first crucial point missing in the survey is that the 300 number of people cannot represent the all people consistent with working. The sample is too short to generalize. Moreover, since the study lacks details about the participants in the survey, we can barely generalize its results; for instance, the survey might be viable for certain employees or workers with certain ages, and at the same time, it might not conform with others to bring success.

Lastly, the survey’s sample is restricted to an occupation. The author's unspoken assumption is that no matter how much businesses differ with each other, all can benefit from the 6 hour pattern of sleep of their employees. Nevertheless, the nature of the businesses might be different and demand different amount of sleep from each successful employee. The 300 participants of the survey are executives of advertising firms, what about the other jobs and other firms? an sketcher of the same successful advertising firms might not have a good performance when he/she does not sleep no more than 6 hours per night, let alone the other firms and businesses. Therefore the author needs a more comprehensive study.

In short, the survey cannot be a firm reference to generalize that every business can benefit from hiring employees who need no more than 6 hours sleep per night. As discussed, there are too many unsupported assumptions, with each being potentially unwarranted the whole argument and its conclusion cannot be tenable.