Critical Thinking - 10 points (400-word limit

Read the following paragraph and provide a brief analysis of it from a critical thinking point of view

1. Why do people fall for all the fad diets out there when the only nutrition plan that’s even close to sensible is the Hunt & Peck Diet? Anyone who thinks another diet will do them any good is a complete cretin who knows nothing about the nutritional needs of the human body. The Hunt & Peck for Health diet book has been a top seller on Barnes & Noble.com for over 6 weeks now, far outselling any other diet books, which demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that this diet is superior to all others. This diet takes us back to the old ways of dealing with food; and as everyone knows, the old ways are the best ways. My friend Bertha, who has tried more diets than you can shake a Tootsies Pop at, has lost a pound and a half on this diet, which is a record for her and proves how effective this breakthrough diet concept is. Plus, this diet has been mentioned in several major newspapers and you can see dozens of ads for it each evening on late-night cable TV shows, which means it must be legit. The concept of chasing down your own food and eating it raw on the spot is an incredible breakthrough that none of those hoity-toity think-tank researchers has managed to come up with, despite the claims of all the fundraising junk mail they send out every year! In fact, I heard that four out of five research scientists have never heard of this diet, which goes to show that research is useless and we should stop making contributions to those do-nothing medical research organizations. Sure, there may be some folks out there who are too slow to be able to run down a deer; but the beauty of this diet is that they can lose weight by eating twigs and nuts, or by raiding dumpsters, just like our nomadic ancestors did. Or simply by doing a lot of running after deer, even if they don’t catch them! Anyway, people really need to get onto this diet; if they don’t, the whole country is going to be couch potatoes before too long. One great aspect of this diet is that you don’t have to keep track or what you eat, or weigh yourself, or do much of anything, unless you want to, which is terrific because everybody wants freedom from having to worry about their weight. Also, did I mention that this diet book is really cheap to buy, which is the most important thing people care about in terms of choosing a diet? Anyway, do this diet you’ll be glad you did. It’s the greatest.

You don't need to apply all of Browne & Keeley’s 10-critical thinking steps, but you must include at least the following three:

1. What is the issue and what is the conclusion?

2. Identify at least three reasoning fallacies, by name, and explain why they are fallacies in this argument.

3. Identify a value assumption in the argument and explain why it is a value