Perhaps due to the presumption of innocence? They are constantly aware that you have to have proof beyond reasonable doubt to convict someone, whereas in other fields we are more likely to assume an answer exists?
A bit late, but I’d like an answer to this too. I enjoyed talking to law students at college. They clearly have the same sort of minds as mathematicians, except they can also talk like proper humans do, and their problems are interesting. If they have a better way of teaching that sort of thing, maybe someone should try using it for science.
I think perhaps the reason one would say that legal education is better is that it is understood from the first day that many of the problems that will be posed actually have no answer (“What is justice?” “How can we balance the interests in this scenario?” “What would the reasonable [sic] person do given this dilemma?”) and that what is important is the quality of the reasoning you use to come to your answer, not the outcome.
When a well-argued, incorrect answer is scored more highly than a correct answer with no justification, the get-the-gold-star incentive is removed and it improves quality of thought on the matter.
Maybe this person meant something entirely different; I can’t claim to speak on their behalf.
It would be no surprise if legal training turns out clever arguers, but there’s a big difference between arguing persuasively and getting the right answer. Training in questions where there is no single right answer may improve students’ rhetoric, but I think it’s likely to leave them underprepared when they have to weigh in on questions where there is a single right answer, and no amount of argument will make any other answer acceptable.
Incidentally, this is an area where legal instruction is superior to scientific instruction at the graduate/pre-thesis level.
How so?
Perhaps due to the presumption of innocence? They are constantly aware that you have to have proof beyond reasonable doubt to convict someone, whereas in other fields we are more likely to assume an answer exists?
A bit late, but I’d like an answer to this too. I enjoyed talking to law students at college. They clearly have the same sort of minds as mathematicians, except they can also talk like proper humans do, and their problems are interesting. If they have a better way of teaching that sort of thing, maybe someone should try using it for science.
I think perhaps the reason one would say that legal education is better is that it is understood from the first day that many of the problems that will be posed actually have no answer (“What is justice?” “How can we balance the interests in this scenario?” “What would the reasonable [sic] person do given this dilemma?”) and that what is important is the quality of the reasoning you use to come to your answer, not the outcome.
When a well-argued, incorrect answer is scored more highly than a correct answer with no justification, the get-the-gold-star incentive is removed and it improves quality of thought on the matter.
Maybe this person meant something entirely different; I can’t claim to speak on their behalf.
It would be no surprise if legal training turns out clever arguers, but there’s a big difference between arguing persuasively and getting the right answer. Training in questions where there is no single right answer may improve students’ rhetoric, but I think it’s likely to leave them underprepared when they have to weigh in on questions where there is a single right answer, and no amount of argument will make any other answer acceptable.