Do we learn more from others whose ideas we share in common than from those whose ideas contradict ours? The statement claims so, we usually do because disagreement can cause stress and inhibit learning. I concede that endless disagreement can cause impaired learning. Otherwise, in my view we learn far more from discourse and debate with those whose ideas we oppose than from people whose ideas are in accord with our own.
Admittedly, under certain circumstances disagreement with others can be counterproductive to learning. For example, on today’s typical television or radio talk show, disagreement usually shows itself in a form of meaningless rebuttal and shouting matches. They often seem to have no interest in finding merits of the opponents’ viewpoint and searching for a common ground. Of course, neither the viewers nor the participants can take a meaningful lesson from this kind of debate. The end result is that learning is impeded.
Disagreement can also inhibit learning when two opposing views disagree on fundamental assumptions. For example, the discourse between a creationist who believes that God has created the world and every living creature in the world with his words and a evolutionist who thinks that all the living species are a result of evolution will be endless and nearly impossible to reach to a certain amount of consent. The bedrock of their assumption is fundamentally different and incompatible. In this case, debating upon a origin of species will be totally meaningless, and probably stressful, causing inhibited learning.
Aside from the conditions mentioned above, however, I fundamentally disagree with the speaker’s claim. Assuming common ground between two opinion and reasonable opponents who are willing to debate on intellectual merits, both opponents can gain much from that debate. In fact, such debate has been the primary source of academic advancement for scholars. For example, Carl Jung, the psychologist was a disciple of Freud, who was deeply concerned about subconscious of human, successfully constructed his own academic world by taking merits of his teacher’s theories and refuting the existing theory and providing new explanations at the same time. If it were not for Carl posing opposition to Freud’s idea, there would not have been a such improvement in psychology.
In addition, even in our daily lives, we can learn from people who have contradicting views. Teenagers often have conflicting view with their parents who want them to behave properly. Although this conflict seems like a never ending one, by taking account of each others’ position, the parents can learn valuable lesson about effective parenting, and the teenagers can learn how certain behaviors naturally carry certain undesirable consequences.
In sum, unless two opponents in a debate are each willing to play on the same field and by the same rules, I concede that disagreement can impede learning. Otherwise, reasoned discourse and debate between people with opposing viewpoints is the very foundation upon which academic progress has taken place, and is valued in our daily life settings.
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nd result is that learning is impeded. Disagreement can also inhibit learning w...
^^^^
Line 5, column 253, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...reature in the world with his words and a evolutionist who thinks that all the li...
^
Line 5, column 517, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...compatible. In this case, debating upon a origin of species will be totally meani...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, so, for example, in addition, in fact, kind of, of course, in my view
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.5258426966 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.4196629213 105% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 14.8657303371 121% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 11.3162921348 159% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 33.0505617978 103% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 58.6224719101 116% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 12.9106741573 108% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2692.0 2235.4752809 120% => OK
No of words: 494.0 442.535393258 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.44939271255 5.05705443957 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71445763274 4.55969084622 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.02940954616 2.79657885939 108% => OK
Unique words: 263.0 215.323595506 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.532388663968 0.4932671777 108% => OK
syllable_count: 822.6 704.065955056 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 6.24550561798 96% => OK
Article: 6.0 4.99550561798 120% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 3.10617977528 97% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.77640449438 169% => OK
Preposition: 10.0 4.38483146067 228% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 20.2370786517 114% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 23.0359550562 91% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.8913557973 60.3974514979 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.043478261 118.986275619 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4782608696 23.4991977007 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.04347826087 5.21951772744 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 4.97078651685 121% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 7.80617977528 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 10.2758426966 78% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 5.13820224719 214% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.432332881243 0.243740707755 177% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.11799488856 0.0831039109588 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.130143438136 0.0758088955206 172% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.210896215101 0.150359130593 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.205572389583 0.0667264976115 308% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.1392134831 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.8420337079 85% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.1743820225 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.33 12.1639044944 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.8 8.38706741573 105% => OK
difficult_words: 129.0 100.480337079 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 11.8971910112 71% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.2143820225 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.7820224719 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.