The Love Drug

Title: The Love Drug

Author: Maia Szalavitz
Publication Info: Published on 17 May 2008 by NewScientist
Date: 12 March 2011
Class: Theory of Knowledge
Category: In Class

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            The article discusses the effects of oxytocin – a substance that was used to increase the supply for breastfeeding in the past. It claims that the oxytocin actually creates a hormone that causes a person to feel more attached and sexually aroused by his/he surroundings. All bonding/mating animals have oxytocin in their blood, and this is the cause for our desire to interact with one another and have physical contact. The amount of oxytocin in the blood depended on the person’s childhood, how he/she has been raised, the amount of affection he/she had received etc. The more interaction they received, the higher oxytocin there was present in their blood. Numerous scientists in this article had conducted experiments with rats, prairies and humans to support their conclusions that oxytocin could be used by people to become more interactive, calm, and even cure social illnesses such as autism and social phobia. However how reliable is the information presented? (Knowledge Issue)

            This article presented evidence to support its point. This evidence came from scientists that were of esteemed universities. Why did the author choose to put the description of where this scientist was studying? Is it because he/she thought the article would be more trustworthy if these scientists were from known schools rather than scientists from universities of a lower rank or even, High School students? Wouldn’t this be then, using the fallacy: argumentum ad vericundium to support the reasoning further? If this article is using fallacies to reason, then how reliable is this article itself?  (Knowledge Issues)

            These experiments were conducted on mostly animals such as rats and prairies. Are the scientists making the assumption that humans behave like these animals? How are they so certain that humans will react in the same manner? Even if they did conduct the experiments on humans, how do they justify that all, even most of the humans will react the same way? Aren’t they assuming that most people react the same way (appeal to common practice, hasty generalization)? With these fallacies used to reason their conclusion, how reliable is this experiment and study? (Knowledge Issues)