In the film The Paper Chase (1973), Professor Kingsfield teaches law by the Socratic method. His best-known line is usually quoted as: “You come in here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.” Early sources give slightly different wording.
John Houseman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role.
In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, decided on June 28, 1993, the Supreme Court made trial judges gatekeepers for expert testimony. “The trial judge must ensure that any and all scientific testimony or evidence admitted is not only relevant, but reliable.” A key question is whether a theory “can be (and has been) tested.”
Admitted evidence still faces attack. The Court named “vigorous cross-examination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction on the burden of proof” as “the traditional and appropriate means of attacking shaky but admissible evidence.”
In Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association v. State Farm, decided on June 24, 1983, the Supreme Court set a standard for federal agencies. An agency “must examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action including a ‘rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.'”
The Commerce Department planned to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Its stated reason was to help enforce the Voting Rights Act. On June 27, 2019, the Supreme Court sent the decision back to the department.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Voting Rights Act rationale, “the sole stated reason,” “seems to have been contrived.” An agency must “offer genuine justifications” for important decisions. The question was kept off the 2020 census.
Before nominees face a Senate confirmation hearing, their teams hold practice hearings called murder boards. In 2010 about 20 members of the Obama team played senators and questioned Elena Kagan for several hours a day. Rachel Brand, who helped prepare John Roberts and Samuel Alito, described the aim: to “ask those hard questions in the nastiest conceivable way, over and over and over.”
In January 2017 the Trump transition team held 30 practice hearings for cabinet nominees, more than 70 hours in all.
From October 27, 1787, to August 16, 1788, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay published 85 essays in New York newspapers under the name “Publius.” They wrote to persuade New York voters to support ratification of the proposed Constitution. The essays were collected as The Federalist.
The first essay asked “whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice.”
In 1858 Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas held seven debates in Illinois, from Ottawa on August 21 to Alton on October 15. One candidate opened with an hour. The other replied for an hour and a half. The first then had 30 minutes of rebuttal.
American high school students still compete in a format named after them, Lincoln-Douglas debate.
In his 1974 commencement address at Caltech, “Cargo Cult Science,” the physicist Richard Feynman said: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
He asked scientists for “a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong.”
The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics list practices that students should learn. The third reads: “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.”
The standard explains: “Mathematically proficient students understand and use stated assumptions, definitions, and previously established results in constructing arguments.”
Y Combinator is Silicon Valley’s best-known startup school. Its partners meet weekly with each startup in the batch. The meetings are called office hours.
Founders bring rough ideas. The partners pull the ideas apart in minutes. Paul Graham’s pocket advice for startups is blunt: “Launch now.” About one startup in seven changes its idea during a batch.