But why should we assume that lawyes’ abilities will not rise as well?
I expect that the sorts of people who become lawyers today are already better acquainted with critical thinking techniques than the sorts of people who become jurors. Also, I expect an across-the-board training curriculum for subject X to have more of an impact on people who know little about X than it does on people who know a lot about X—that is, I expect it to raise the floor more than the ceiling.
Therefore, I expect an across-the-board critical thinking curriculum to reduce the difference between a typical lawyer’s abilities and a typical juror’s abilities in areas related to critical thinking. If you raise the floor more than the ceiling, average height differences tend to decrease.
But surely lawyers will play to their audience, and learn to present whatever fallacies the jurors will be susceptible to.
Sure, but again, I don’t expect them to be able to improve enough to maintain the same proportional superiority to jurors, for essentially the same reason that ten years of additional life experience sharply reduces the cognitive advantages that a typical 25-year-old has over a typical 15-year-old.
Also, if juries were sufficiently trained in critical thinking, then lawyers who actually had the facts on their side would eventually find that presenting the actual facts, and pointing out the fallacies in their opponents’ arguments, would be a viable strategy. (Right now, I doubt that it is for most juries.) In other words, the more effective the jury is at distinguishing truth from falsehood, the more of an advantage the truth is to a lawyer.
Why do you think it wouldn’t work?
Sorry; I thought my analogy was clearer than it was. I expect it not to work because there just isn’t enough leverage between the place we’d be exerting the effort (classrooms) and the place where we’d be expecting the results (courtroom), much as with grade school calisthenics and soldiers. That is, I don’t actually anticipate the kind of increase in critical thinking skill among jurors I’m discussing here based on the kind of curriculum I’m discussing here, any more than I expect a typical thirty-year-old to know how to factor a polynomial expression or diagram a sentence.
I expect that the sorts of people who become lawyers today are already better acquainted with critical thinking techniques than the sorts of people who become jurors. Also, I expect an across-the-board training curriculum for subject X to have more of an impact on people who know little about X than it does on people who know a lot about X—that is, I expect it to raise the floor more than the ceiling.
Therefore, I expect an across-the-board critical thinking curriculum to reduce the difference between a typical lawyer’s abilities and a typical juror’s abilities in areas related to critical thinking. If you raise the floor more than the ceiling, average height differences tend to decrease.
Sure, but again, I don’t expect them to be able to improve enough to maintain the same proportional superiority to jurors, for essentially the same reason that ten years of additional life experience sharply reduces the cognitive advantages that a typical 25-year-old has over a typical 15-year-old.
Also, if juries were sufficiently trained in critical thinking, then lawyers who actually had the facts on their side would eventually find that presenting the actual facts, and pointing out the fallacies in their opponents’ arguments, would be a viable strategy. (Right now, I doubt that it is for most juries.) In other words, the more effective the jury is at distinguishing truth from falsehood, the more of an advantage the truth is to a lawyer.
Sorry; I thought my analogy was clearer than it was. I expect it not to work because there just isn’t enough leverage between the place we’d be exerting the effort (classrooms) and the place where we’d be expecting the results (courtroom), much as with grade school calisthenics and soldiers. That is, I don’t actually anticipate the kind of increase in critical thinking skill among jurors I’m discussing here based on the kind of curriculum I’m discussing here, any more than I expect a typical thirty-year-old to know how to factor a polynomial expression or diagram a sentence.
I’d love to be wrong, though.