From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 13:47:33 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.175641.7396@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>
>Reminder: It was you who adduced SAT scores in support of some point or
>another. If you don't actually have any relevant data about them, why cite
>them?

You know they've declined and I know they've declined.  This demand for
studies is a smokescreen.

>
>>Yes, SATs may show a decline owing to
>>increased access to law school, but white male SATs have declined along
>>with all others, leading me to conclude that white male law student SATs
>>have also declined.
>
>Since you claim to be a teacher of logic, I have to wonder what kind of
>logic you teach if you reach conclusions in this manner. Your final
>proposition does not necessarily follow from your premises.

Doesn't have to.  Logical principles in political argument don't demand
logical necessity; otherwise, NO political assertions could ever be
made.  This would be quite convenient to the power elite, but in a
democracy, a citizen has to make inferences based on something less than
logical necessity, and more than sheer randomness.

I really think the computer and other digital devices, with their savage
and only apparent precision, has had a pernicious effect on you young
fellows.  You whine about failures in logic in areas which are only
partly logical because your goddamn calculators and Mathematica gives
you 10 digits of quasiprecision, and you ignore than even in the
hardest of the hard sciences, physics, your teachers continually warn
you about the falsity of more than two decimal digits of precision in
many ordinary measurements.  You confuse partial precision with utter
randomness, even as you confuse the speech of pornographers and punks
with that of Martin Luther King.  Your inability to make distinctions is
not an argument.


>
>Is Stanford the same as all elite law schools? What's your basis for
>concluding that Stanford in 1992 is the same as Harvard in the early '70s
>(when Turow wrote ONE L)?

The same sort of students self-select for elite law schools, typically
younger students without premature family responsibilities who are
either willing to live penuriously or who have parental support (or who
can both live penuriously, and know that a well-off parent is available
to step in in emergencies such as illness.)  A different population
self-selects for East Jerusalem College of Law, typically older students
and students who have to work, whether out of penury or else a need for
a safety net including health insurance.

>
>I think it represents elitism on your part to suppose that, even if
>something is rotten at the elite schools, we can generalize about all
>lawyers from this. Only a minority of lawyers attend elite law schools.
>
>>Nor are we in a court of law, so quit cross-examining me.
>
>Start telling the truth, and you needn't fear harsh questions.

I don't fear them so much as find you amusing.

>
>I don't mind comparisons with Eliza, given that Eliza shows both greater
>consistency and logic in "her" responses than you do, and is far, far 
>less dissembling.

I am aware that the Law 'n Economix gang want to convert to ATM-style
computerized law, 'specially for poor folks.  I am also aware that the
very author of Eliza, Joseph Weizenbaum, found people who ascribed
semi-human characteristics to the first Eliza instance, and who hoped
that this instance would replace psychology ('specially for poor folks)
to be twits of the first water, and showed them to be such in Computer
Power and Human Reason.  If you think that AI will work in either law or
psychology, you are well-advised to read CPAHR as well as The
Phenomenology of Mind (look under the parable of the master and the
slave.)

>
>>My experience with the Socratic method of teaching law is limited,
>>because I avoid bullies and toad-eaters.
>
>This reminds of the old joke about the kid who says he's glad he doesn't
>like spinach. If he did, he'd eat it all the time, and that would be
>terrible because he *hates* it. Same logical principle at work.

Unfortunately, it's foolish.  For it's very hard here in the Moronic
Inferno to avoid bullies and toad-eaters (I'm talking to one.)


     "Hey, Harv, are you into TRIVIA?"
     "I'm talkin' to ya, ain't I?"