Claim: The best test of an argument is its ability to convince someone with an opposing viewpoint.
Reason: Only by being forced to defend an idea against the doubts and contrasting views of others does one really discover the value of that idea.
I only partially agree with this claim and the argument used to justify it.
Traditionally, the soundness of an argument or a theory should always be justified and proved. This relates to scientific honesty and methods. In fact, phenomelogy tells us that scientists got along plenty of rough arguments to decide whether theories are correct. For example, physicists and mathematics wondered if light is composed of discrete particules or is only a wave. Both supporters of each side imagined and provided experiments to prove their opposing counterparts they were right. On the same time, they could readjust the axioms of their own theory. Finally, one scientist managed to set everything down and stated eventually that light was both a wave and a particle. Thus, this scientific debate was closed peacefully on sound arguments.
However, this paragon of a story cannot be applied to our everyday struggles. Indeed, we should consider the fact that our opponent may be stubborn or not willing to hear your arguments. Then, finding ways to convince and persuade is of no avail. The example of Galileo coping with a narrow-minded Church is a good one. In fact, he made meticulous and patient observations of celestial objects to prove and support the theory of heliocentrism. Yet, the Church claimed this theory was against the Bible and thus Galileo should be punished and renounce to his proven thesis. This example shows how genius or honest a rational person can be, if the person you are talking to is not listening or is tangled in its own beliefs, whatever you say is useless.
To consider a more present day so-called debate, some people believes Earth is flat even if scientists from the Antiquity proved Earth was round and space pictures exist of our planet. Because what humans tend to only trust what is sensible, what we can see and what we can firmly touch, we are easily fooled by our senses. Flat-earthers think our planet is that way, because at our scale, we feel the Earth flat. To convince people of your claim, you should be sure that they will be receptive to your arguments and willing to hear and that they share with you the common basis knowledge to understand what you mean. Otherwise, any patent prove will surely be rejected and overlooked.
To conclude, even if the process explained by the claim is justified and should be followed because of scientific honesty, it cannot be effectively applied if the people you want talk with do not listen to you or do not have the knowledge to understand what your proof.
Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
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2020-01-16 | jason123 | 66 | view |
2020-01-09 | Abhipray Singh | 58 | view |
2020-01-09 | Abhipray Singh | 66 | view |
2019-12-12 | Pranjil | 66 | view |
2019-11-26 | NRS | 58 | view |
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- We can usually learn much more from people whose views we share than from people whose views contradict our own.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position 50
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, however, if, look, may, so, then, thus, for example, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.5258426966 149% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.4196629213 113% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 14.8657303371 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 11.3162921348 53% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 47.0 33.0505617978 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 50.0 58.6224719101 85% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 12.9106741573 15% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2123.0 2235.4752809 95% => OK
No of words: 433.0 442.535393258 98% => OK
Chars per words: 4.90300230947 5.05705443957 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56165014514 4.55969084622 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66604944792 2.79657885939 95% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 215.323595506 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.547344110855 0.4932671777 111% => OK
syllable_count: 651.6 704.065955056 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59117977528 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 6.24550561798 192% => OK
Article: 3.0 4.99550561798 60% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 3.10617977528 129% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.77640449438 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.38483146067 137% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 20.2370786517 109% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 23.0359550562 82% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.7727076971 60.3974514979 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.5 118.986275619 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.6818181818 23.4991977007 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.13636363636 5.21951772744 60% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 10.2758426966 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 5.13820224719 117% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.83258426966 124% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.124966973262 0.243740707755 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0367431943919 0.0831039109588 44% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0424774607317 0.0758088955206 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.083324619427 0.150359130593 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0364654632584 0.0667264976115 55% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.5 14.1392134831 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.8420337079 124% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.92365168539 39% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.1743820225 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.14 12.1639044944 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.7 8.38706741573 104% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 100.480337079 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 11.8971910112 59% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.2143820225 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.7820224719 85% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.