Paleo diets — GRE Argument task
Paleo diets, in which one eats how early hominids (human ancestors) did, are becoming increasingly popular. Proponents claim our bodies evolved to eat these types of food, especially bone broth, a soup made by cooking animal bones for several hours. They believe it has many health-promoting nutrients, such as cartilage, which can heal our joints, and chondroitin, which promotes nerve regeneration. Skeptics point out that ingested cartilage can’t replenish cartilage in your knees or elbows and ingested chondroitin doesn’t make our brains any healthier. Yet, there is strong anecdotal evidence that people who consume bone broth have fewer metabolic and inflammatory diseases than those who don’t. Therefore, ancient humans knew something about our physiology that we don’t, and that by emulating the way they ate, we can cure many chronic illnesses.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
This task appeared on Magoosh’s practice test. Here’s my take on it:
The passage presents an argument that claims Paleo diets to be a cure to many of our ailments and also presents an opposing view. Although it mentions certain health benefits that can be affected by the Paleo diet, the argument lacks concrete evidence and does not mention any scientific research to support its assumptions. Moreover, the opposing view also relies on anecdotal evidence rather than scientifically valid results which can be used to impugn the argument supporting Paleo diet as a healthy way of life.
The argument presented in favor of Paleo diet largely relies on the argument presented by its proponents. It is likely that the staunch supporters of this diet would ostentatiously bolster the claims made to establish Paleo diet as a panacea for our ailments. Furthermore, the passage claims that evolution has primed us to eat the types of food included in the Paleo diet. However, it fails to take into account the physical activities, metabolism and our surroundings have also greatly changed since the earliest homo sapiens. Our food habits and the nutrients necessary to survive in 21st century is likely to be different than that of the early human beings. For example our ancestor led a more physically active life where survival itself was challenging. In contrast, today most of us live a sedentary life where we do not have to encounter wildlife every now and then. This is a factor that is highly likely to influence our food intake, which the passage fails to take into account.
Additionally, the opposing view claims that the cartilage we intake cannot heal our joints and neither does it regenerate nerve. However, we are not provided with any evidence or results from a research study. The statement itself cannot be taken without any scientific validation. Moreover, we do not have sufficient information on the people we underwent Paleo diet for a certain amount of time compared to those who were not subject to the diet. The lack of this data negates the possibility to make any comparative statement. Any such statement made will be seriously questionable and subject to fallacy.
Most importantly, the argument hinges upon the results of people who actually underwent this diet compared to those who did not. The passage mentions the existence of anecdotal evidence but all we are presented are mere words and not numbers. We do not know whether the anecdotal evidence was an outlier or it is a regularity. Moreover, the passage tries to draw correlation between chronic illness and Paleo diet but what we really should be looking into for validating the argument is whether Paleo diet has a causation factor to curing our ailments.
