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.
It might seem logical, at first glance, to agree with the article that concludes the high level of cortisol production is in direct relation with the birth order both in humans and monkeys. The author of this letter relies on what might less credible pieces of evidence or even unproven assumptions to support his assertion that I will distinguish them below.
First of all, the letter readily assumes that being the first child guarantees that you will have the most cortisol level in stimulating situations among your siblings. This is merely an assumption made without much solid ground. For example, there is no explanation that the study was implemented in its standards criteria. Maybe, the number of samples, monkeys, was not enough to represent the statistical society well and it should be done in different group numbers. Or maybe, a specific gender, a special range of age was also effective on the results. Assuming that characteristics of a group apply to every member of the group, the letter fails to consider that only 18 Rhesus monkeys might not be representative of monkeys’ different species as a whole. Hence, the letter would have been much more convincing if it explicitly stated the conditions of the research test and the ratio of the sample to the whole statistical society.
Secondly, the author relies on a weak correlation where it claims that the hormone increase is definitely special to the first-born monkeys. To illustrate further, we are not informed whether there were some other external reasons which culminate the double increases in their bodies such as loud sounds and bright dims. Or maybe, the author has not accounted for the possibility that some inner interaction can cause this augmentation such as some chemical reactions, increasing the body temperature. Without ruling out this reason, the letter simply cannot justify its proposal. If the letter had provided evidence that stated the environmental condition, in which the test was held, in more detail, then it would have been a lot more convincing to the reader.
Finally, the letter cites that firstborn humans also act as firstborn monkeys in that particular situation. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s conclusion in several critical respects, and raises some ambiguity. The letter overlooks the fact that humans, who are having different DNA with other creatures, had different responses in encountering such conditions. So, extrapolating of monkeys and humans is not correct. Without convincing answers to these questions, the reader is left with the impression that the claims made by the author are more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
To recapitulate, the author’s argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author must provide more concrete evidence, perhaps by way of a detailed analysis of further races of monkeys in different situations and different environmental parameters. Although, we cannot absolutely refuse it without perusing any additional assumptions and reasoning.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 494 350
No. of Characters: 2562 1500
No. of Different Words: 267 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.714 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.186 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.768 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 203 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 150 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.455 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.145 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.275 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.48 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.071 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, well, for example, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2645.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 494.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.35425101215 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71445763274 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90893435197 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 269.0 204.123752495 132% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.544534412955 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 815.4 705.55239521 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.5405172838 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.227272727 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4545454545 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.5 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.108710805343 0.218282227539 50% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0291521391019 0.0743258471296 39% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0250812801514 0.0701772020484 36% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0561071650238 0.128457276422 44% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0290482487293 0.0628817314937 46% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.05 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.23 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 141.0 98.500998004 143% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.