The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia."Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, f

A study is shown about headaches suffered by the residents of a Town and their inverse analogy with salicylates used by food companies as preservatives and food flaviring ingredients. The author bases his conclusion to a survey involving the increase in salicylates used as preservatives by companies and the decrease in headaches the previous years. Assuming that the increase of salicylates use by companies will further derese headaches could prove unwarranted. In the paragraph below I located and prioritized the fallacies and assumptions the study is making.

The author of this study is making an assumption regarding a cause and effect situation. More specifically, the study mentions that the rise in salicylates used by food-processing companies as preservatives is the cause to the decline in headaches of the residents of Mentia. This does not necesseraly indicate a correlation between the two of them. For example, if another survey comes up that indicates that the sales of aspirin in Mentia in this 20-year period increased, this could probably explain why there is this steady increase in the headaches. Therefore, in order to make this argument valid more evidence from another surveys are required to support the assumption the study makes.

Another post hoc fallacy the study is making is that it mentions that if the use of salicylates in food companies as flavor additives increases the number of headache incidents will decrease furthermore. This is offered as the cocnlusion of the study but is clearly an assumption. Let me explain via an example. If a study came up that indicated that a frequent use of this specific chemical family that both salicylates and the aspirin are members has as a result for the organisms to develop resistance to this substances and therefore to weaken the effects they have on headaches. This study would severely contradict the conclusion of the current study and indicate that the assumption that the increase of salicylates and the decrease of headaches is profoundly unwarranted.

The study is also focusing on some specific aspects of the issue and disregarding other aspects that may or may not prove crucial to contradicting this survey. To explain, the study mentions about preservatives and food flavoring ingredients used by food companies but is solely focused on salicylates completely disregarding other preservatives and chemicals used for food flavoring assuming that none of these has anything to do with headaches or other symptoms. For instance if another new food flavoring ingredient was known that it produces headaches especially to children and elder people thsi would be a serious information that should be disregarded. Therefore even if the salicylates are indeed helping with headaches we cannot assume that other ingredients the food companies use will not be responsible for headaches.

To sum up, in these essay the assumptions the study is making where mentioned by indicated the fallacies the author is making such as the post hoc fallacy and the focusing only on one aspect of the problem. The study, in the next evaluation should try and demonstrate some more evidence in order to support these assumptions and turn them into undisputable facts ultimately making the survey more credible.