978-1259690877 Test Bank Chapter 11 Part 5

subject Type Homework Help
subject Pages 13
subject Words 5103
subject Authors Brooke Noel Moore, Richard Parker

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135.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
The packages that we gave our friend Debbie are undamaged, while the packages we sent
through Ted suffered damage. We learned a lesson: Don't let Ted handle any packages.
He is extremely careless.
Common variable principle. (Notice that the first claim of the passage is equivalent to "All
packages that suffered damage are packages taken by Ted...." This version makes the
common variable principle more obvious.) Our packer might consider whether the
materials that were damaged were more fragile than the othersthat could be another
relevant factor.
136.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Raphael is troubled by the fact that when he purchases new guitar strings, they seem
always to go dead after just a few weeks of use. A friend suggests that he boil the strings
in vinegar when they lose their resonance. Raphael tries it, and the strings sound almost
like new again. After a few weeks, the strings go dead again, and Raphael boils them in
vinegar and gets the same results. He resigns himself to a session with boiling vinegar
every few weeks.
Paired unusual events principle; because of the second treatment, common variable
principle may be a possibility, but a far-fetched one. (Does anyone know whether this
really works? The smell of boiling vinegar wouldn’t be worth a failed attempt.)
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137.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
When Halley’s comet hovered over Jerusalem in A.D. 66, the historian Josephus warned it
meant the destruction of the city. Jerusalem fell four years later, thus confirming the
power of the comet.
Post hoc
. Somebody applied Josephus’s prediction again in 1988, this time to Los Angeles.
Didn’t work this time. At least not yet.
138.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
A terrible squeaking noise from my tape recorder got so bad I couldn’t stand to listen to
my tapes anymore. I was sure the machine had developed a problemand just a month
after the warranty expired, too. So I cleaned the heads, the capstan, and all the moving
parts, hoping I could make the noise go away. It remained. Then, just as I had decided I
was going to have to take it in for repairs, I played some tapes belonging to a friend of
mine, and the squeak wasn’t there. So the problem is with my tapes, not my machine. I’m
not sure I like that any better, since I’ve got dozens of them.
Paired unusual events principle. This is a fairly good argument; of course, he could
consider that his tapes only make noise when they play in his machine.
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11-83
139.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Less than twenty-four hours after seeing the movie
Glade’s Corner
, which depicts the
brutal knife-slaying of an elderly man by teenagers, fifteen-year-old Mark Striker
attempted to kill his sixty-five-year-old great uncle. His weapon: a knife.
Post hoc
, as it stands.
140.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Fund-raising director for a public radio station: "I know that our music director gets
hysterical when we play a lot of tired stuff like the
1812 Overture
and the Grieg piano
concerto. But go back and look at our most successful fund drives; every big day has been
a day heavily loaded with those ‘classics.’"
Common variable principle.
141.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
If you don’t want your kids to smoke tobacco, keep them away from marijuana. It has been
estimated that 75 percent of pot smokers do use other drugs, including tobacco.
This argument may ignore a common, underlying cause. Also, if there is causation, the
argument may have it reversed, confusing cause and effect.
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11-84
142.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Between 1984 and 1989, American consumption of oatmeal at breakfast went up 56
percent. Meanwhile, the consumption of coffee dropped 11 percent. For some reason,
oatmeal must make coffee taste bad.
Probably there is an underlying third cause. The statistics cited might even be
coincidence.
143.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
"Being happy and having a positive outlook may help people with heart disease avoid
heart attacks and other health problems. Approximately one in five coronary heart disease
patients is seriously depressed, so be on guard against depression in yourself and your
loved ones."
Sharon Faelten,
Vitality
This could be a case of confusing cause and effect.
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144.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
"After four years as an associate and brokerage manager with the New York life insurance
consulting firm Kramer-Helgans, Sharon Brick noticed that she was being taken more
seriously. It wasn’t just because she’d done a great job, says Brick. She had changed her
hair color from a dull brown to a lighter, more flattering sandy blond. Several months later,
Brick was offered a partnership in the firm."
Working Woman
Post hoc
.
145.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Are body lice a cause of good health? So it seemed to the people in New Hebrides Islands,
according to John Allen Paulos’s comment in his book
Innumeracy
. After all, when body
lice departed, people became ill.
As Paulos in effect observed, this is an instance of ignoring an underlying cause. The good
health and the lice both departed because of a fever. (Of course, the fever doesn’t actually
cause the illness, but it causes some of the discomfort of the illness.)
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11-86
146.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Since the taxes [on cigarettes] have been going up in Canada, cigarette smoking has been
going down, particularly among the young. The lesson here is plain: The best way to
reduce smoking is simply to raise the price of cigarettes.
Paired unusual events principle; although… are the higher taxes the only thing that’s
different from times when the young smoked more? We doubt it.
147.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
The price of a pack of cigarettes in Norway is $11.20, with taxes making up at least 70
percent of the total cost. Contrast that to the United States, where a pack sells for about
$4.50. That’s why per capita consumption here is 2,200, whereas in Norway it is 700.
Paired unusual events principle.
148.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
If you don’t believe in God, you’re much more likely to commit suicide. You can tell that by
looking at places like Sweden and Norway where there’s a higher percentage of atheists
than the norm and their per capita suicide rate is higher, too.
Cum hoc
.
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11-87
149.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
In an experiment, ten randomly selected women age 45-50 rated thirty randomly selected
men of the same age as to attractiveness on a scale of 1-5. The men were rated on the
basis of identical frontal face photographs. Researchers then compared the annual income
of the men with their ranks. It was found that the higher a man’s annual income, the
higher his average "handsomeness rating." Do good looks enhance income? Or does
income enhance looks (e.g. through orthodonture, hair styling, etc.)? The researchers said
they did not know.
[This is a fictitious experiment.]
Use of the co-variation principle in a randomized controlled experiment.
150.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Do potassium supplements lower blood pressure? Evidence that they might comes from a
recent experiment in which male volunteers with high systolic blood pressure were
randomly divided into four groups. Three of the groups were given daily supplements
containing varying amounts of potassium (500, 100, and 1500 mgs). Men in the fourth
group were not given potassium supplements. The men were free otherwise to eat what
they wanted. It was found that the higher the potassium dose, the lower the average blood
pressure.
[This is a fictitious experiment.]
Co-variation principle.
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11-88
151.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Researchers in New Zealand discovered that the tiny dilly fish, which inhabit the country’s
fresh water streams, apparently get either excited or afraid when water flows increase.
During the course of three seasons they noticed that the small egg-layers swim faster and
jump out of the water more frequently when water flows were higherthe more water that
ran through the streams the more dilly fish they’d find stranded on the banks.
[This is a fictitious experiment.]
Co-variation principle.
152.
Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text.
Paul Tullius kept records for over a year about his cholesterol levels and his intake of fats
and carbohydrates. He found that his cholesterol levels seemed to be influenced very little
by the amount of fat he ate, but varied directly with his consumption of carbohydrates. The
more of the latter he ate, the higher his cholesterol went. Conversely, when he cut back on
the carbs, his cholesterol level dropped back below his usual numbers. He concluded that
it was carbs that caused his cholesterol levels to be so high for several years.
[This is a fictitious experiment.]
Prospective observational study with the co-variation principle.
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153.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
"You don’t need to become a complete ascetic in order to lower your cholesterol levels.
Scott M. Grundy of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas and his
colleagues rotated nine men through two-month stints on each of three dietsthe
American Health Association diet, in which a maximum of 30 percent of the calories come
from fat; a 40 percent fat diet; and a 20 percent fat diet. The subjects’ average cholesterol
level was 210 mg/dl on entry."
"In all the men, the blood levels of total cholesterol and of the ‘bad’ form of cholesterol,
LDL-cholesterol, fell to around 175. ‘There were no significant differences [in cholesterol
levels of the men] on these three diets,’ Grundy says."
Science News
The "control" group consists, in effect, of the same men before the diets. The article does
not make clear what percentage of the calories in the men’s former diets came from fat, a
defect in the report. (We’ve heard that in the standard U.S. diet, about 41 percent of
calories are fat-derived.)
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154.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
Do sudden heart attacks increase with vigorous exercise? A community-based study
investigated this issue and discovered that persons who habitually exercised vigorously
had a
reduced
risk of sudden cardiac death as compared with persons who only
occasionally exercised vigorously. One hundred thirty-three married men who experienced
out-of-hospital cardiac arrest were chosen for the study. They were classified according to
their usual amount of activity and the amount of activity at the time of the cardiac arrest.
All appeared healthy prior to the heart attacks. The benefits outweighed the risks for men
at the upper levels of habitual high-intensity activity. Their overall risk was 40 percent of
that of sedentary men.
Adapted from "Stress and Health Report," N. T. Enloe Memorial Hospital Stress and
Health Center, Chico, California
Since we don’t know how many of the men qualified as sedentary or habitually high-
intensity active, the 40 percent figure tells us little. Since we have no information on who
conducted the study, we can make no inferences concerning how reasonable the
definitions of the various activity categories are or whether the 40 percent figure
translates into a significant difference. (This kind of report is sometimes the summary of a
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155.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
In a study designed to test some of the effects of marijuana on the performance of difficult
tasks, Jerome A. Yesavage of Stanford University and his colleagues recruited ten
experienced private pilots and trained them on a computerized flight-simulator landing
task. All subjects had smoked marijuana at some time in the past, though none of them
were daily users. None smoked marijuana during the test period, except as required by the
test. The test period began with a morning baseline flight, after which each subject
smoked a marijuana cigarette containing 19 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol, the active
agent in marijuana. The pilots repeated the landing task one, four, and twenty-four hours
later. The worst performances compared with the baseline occurred one hour after
smoking the cigarette. Twenty-four hours later, however, the pilots still experienced
significant difficulty in aligning the computerized airplane and landing it in the center of
the runway. According to the scientists, there were marked deviations from the proper
angle of descent in the last six thousand feet of approach to the landing.
The amount of marijuana smoked is comparable to a strong social dose, the researchers
said.
Adapted from
Science News
The men’s baseline performances constitute the control group in this prospective
observational study. One wonders about the pilots’ attitudes: were any out to prove a
point?
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11-92
156.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
BOSTONAP, UPI reports (adapted). The constant bright lights of hospital nurseries,
often two to four times as bright as normal office lighting, may contribute to the blinding of
hundreds of premature babies each year, a recent study warns. Doctors kept track of the
incidence of retinopathy, a disease of the retina, in two groups of premature babies. One
group was kept in incubators covered with acetate that reduced the amount of light by 58
percent. The rest stayed in ordinary incubators. Among the smallest babies, the
researchers found that twenty-one of thirty-nine (54 percent) in shielded incubators
developed retinopathy, compared with eighteen of twenty-one (86 percent) of those
exposed to the bright lights. Dr. Penny Glass, a developmental psychologist at Children’s
Hospital National Medical Center and Georgetown University Medical Center, who
directed the study, recommends that the light levels in hospital nurseries be brought
down. "I feel that the increase in light levels has not been demonstrated safe," she said.
Note the researcher’s mild conclusion (last sentence). This randomized controlled
experiment offers strong support for such a cautious conclusion.
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11-93
157.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
Tiffany Field, a psychologist at the University of Miami Medical School, believes that it is
good for premature babies to be given short sessions of body stroking and limb movement.
She and her fellow researchers studied forty premature babies in a transitional-care
nursery. Although the infants were stable enough to be released from the intensive care
unit and none needed extra oxygen or intravenous feedings, they had required an average
of twenty days of intensive care, and the heaviest among them was under four pounds.
Their average age at birth was thirty-one weeks. Half the group was randomly chosen to
receive standardized touch and movement stimulation for three fifteen-minute periods per
day over ten consecutive weekdays. Treated infants averaged a 47 percent greater weight
gain per day, even though they had the same number of feedings and the same level of
calorie intake as did the control babies. The stimulated group also was awake and
physically active a greater percentage of the time. "Since the experimental kids were more
active, their weight gain was not due to greater energy conservation," Field points out.
Infants in the treatment group also outdistanced controls on a number of behavioral
measures, and they were hospitalized on the average six days fewer than infants in the
control group.
Adapted from Bruce Bower,
Science News
This randomized controlled experiment provides strong support for the conclusion stated
by the researcher.
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158.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
Does learning how to program a computer help first graders to think? Douglas H. Clements
and Dominic F. Gullo of Kent State University randomly assigned eighteen first graders
from a middle-class, Midwestern school system into two computer groups. The first group
programmed an Apple II computer, using the computer language Logo, during two forty-
minute sessions a week for twelve weeks. The other group received computer-based
lessons in arithmetic and reading for the same time period. It was found that the children
who programmed increased their scores on a creativity test in which they had to devise
and draw pictures under time restraints and became better at identifying instances when
they had not been given enough information to complete a simple task or understand how
a magic trick is performed. However, a number of other tests provided no evidence that
the programming experience can improve overall thinking abilities.
The investigation was reported in the
Journal of Educational Psychology
.
Adapted from
Science News
Based on the report of this randomized controlled experiment, the extent and the nature of
improvement seen on the tests are unclear. Note that the study was published in a
respected journal.
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159.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
"Exercise can temporarily disrupt a woman’s menstrual cycle, according to Boston
University research published in the May 23 [1985]
New England Journal of Medicine
. The
researchers monitored the daily hormone levels in 28 college women who did not exercise
regularly and had a history of regular menstrual cycles. The women were then sent to
summer camp and participated in a rigorous exercise programan initial 4-mile daily run,
working up to 10 miles a day after five weeks, in addition to three and one-half hours daily
of moderate sports such as biking or tennis. Only four, three of whom were on a high-
calorie weight maintenance diet, had a normal menstrual cycle during that time. The
researchers concluded that, regardless of whether the women lost weight, strenuous
exercise disrupted their reproductive function. ‘If very active women are having trouble
getting pregnant, they probably should slow down intense exercise,’ says exercise
physiologist Gary Skrinar of BU."
Science News
This is a prospective observational study, in which the "control group" is the same women
before the exercise regimen. This is a standard and often reliable practice. However, in
this instance it is a weakness in the experiment, since menstrual cycles can be affected by
nervousness, excitement, going on vacations, and other such things. It would be going out
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160.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
Each year in the United States, a surgical procedure known as extracranial-intracranial
arterial (EC/IC) bypass is done on three thousand to five thousand people who have had,
or are at risk of, stroke. The operation, in which an artery on the scalp is attached to an
artery on the brain to bypass a partial or total blockage, costs about $15,000. In a new
study, researchers from the University Hospital in London, Ontario, examined 1,377 people
who had recently had strokes or had signs of impending strokes. They randomly assigned
714 to get standard medical care and 663 to get EC/IC bypasses. The group that had the
surgery subsequently had a slightly higher rate of stroke and death than the control group,
according to the study.
Reported in the New England Journal of Medicine
Remind us not to spend $15,000 on an EC/IC bypass. People who received standard
medical care were part of the control group, while people who got the EC/IC bypasses
were the experimental group.
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11-97
161.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
A study of 546 men in New Zealand who were identified as leukemia patients between
1979 and 1983 suggests that electrical workers are at increased risk of developing this
cancer. Each man was matched with four other men from New Zealand’s cancer registry.
The study found a significant excess of leukemias among those electrical workers who
had been employed as electronic equipment assemblers (4 cases, where only 0.5 would
have been expected) and radio and television repairers (7 cases, where only 1.5 would
have been expected). The study was conducted by N. E. Pearce and his colleagues at the
Department of Community Health, Wellington Clinical School, and National Health
Statistics Centre in Wellington, New Zealand.
In a second study, Washington State epidemiologist Samuel Milham, Jr., obtained the
death certificates for 95 percent of the 296 deceased Washington members of the
American Radio Relay League (amateur radio operators) and 86 percent of the 1,642
deceased California members. Twenty-four of the deaths were due to leukemia; 16 of
these were of the myeloid classnearly triple the 5.7 deaths that would have been
expected from this type of leukemia. Milham acknowledges that the difference might be
attributable to chance but points out that three other studies have revealed a tendency
toward a relative increase in the acute myelogenous type of leukemia in electrical workers.
Adapted from
Science News
The first investigation, a retrospective observational study, suggests that something
associated with working with electronics is a causal factor for leukemia in humans. The
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second, a prospective observational study, does not support the same thesis. But given
the other studies mentioned, we would not think that further investigation of a possible
link between leukemia and electrical work would be a waste of money.
162.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
In a study of telephone operators in North Carolina, Suzanne Haynes of the National
Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, compared 278 women who worked all
day at video display terminals (VDTs) with 218 clerical workers in the same companies
who did not use VDTs. Twice as many VDT users reported chest pains as clerical workers
in the same companies20 percent compared to 10 percent. Perhaps, Haynes
commented, "VDTs can be the ultimate nonsupportive boss."
Adapted from
Science News
This is a prospective observational study, of course. The report is short on details, but the
findings are statistically significant. Nevertheless, before indicting VDT use as a cause of
chest pain or heart trouble, we would want to know more about the other duties and
responsibilities of the VDT users as compared with those of the nonusers.
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163.
A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or
B) in analyzing the passage, do the following:
a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue.
b. Identify what kind of study it is.
c. Describe the control and experimental groups.
d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups.
e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily
limited to uncontrolled variables.
f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report.
In 1960, Dutch researchers from the University of Leiden questioned 852 men and their
wives about the men’s diets and then monitored the men for the next twenty years. They
found that the death rate from heart disease was more than 50 percent lower among men
who ate at least thirty grams (one ounce) of fish per day compared with men who ate no
fish. Just one or two fish dishes a week, the researchers say, "may be of value in the
prevention of coronary heart disease."
Adapted from
Science News
Fish in the diet may be of value in the prevention of coronary heart disease, but this study,
as reported here, does not show that it is. Unless we know what the death rate actually
was, we cannot attach great importance to the "50 percent lower" claim. Given the scope
and likely credibility of the investigators, though, the 50 percent figure probably translates
into a difference that is significant.

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