> I'm argumentative by nature, and I *like* a well-reasoned argument, > whether I agree with the final "findings" or not; it's the beauty of > looking at something (anything: lace problem, philosophical problem, > language/thought process relationship, a twig) from more than one angle > that appeals to me... > > Tamara P Duvall
Wow - so I'm not the only one! I too love well-reasoned argument, and get very frustrated by the sloppy way many things are discussed these days in public, in newspapers and so on. But I'm always getting into trouble for it - do you? I've often been chided for being argumentative, picky or pedantic. So I've begun to learn to shut up. Since I'm also naturally somewhat tactless (for example, I said something here a few weeks ago that I realised later I shouldn't have said), perhaps I should say nothing at all! When I did jury service many years ago, I was shocked at how poor many of my fellow jurors' reasoning skills were. Some people didn't seem able to analyse and sift the evidence, to work out what was important and what was relevant etc. They were often judging purely on gut instinct, on whether they thought the defendant looked guilty. One case involved a young man and a couple of policemen. His sister gave evidence on his behalf and make a complete mess of her story. The questioning wasn't particularly aggressive, but she couldn't get her facts straight and was contradicting herself all over the place. It seemed to me that she had been coached to give a certain version of events that my well not have been true, and couldn't remember it properly. There was other evidence that suggested she couldn't have seen what she saw. I happened to look at the defence barrister while this was going on, and he was hanging his head in his hands. He clearly thought the case was lost. But most of the other jurors felt sorry for the young woman and thought she was just nervous and they wouldn't consider that she might have been lying. So he was found not guilty. I still don't know for sure where the truth lay - probably somewhere between the defendant's version and the police's version. But it was the way the jurors decided the case almost entirely on their feelings for the sister that shocked me. Annette in London To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
