The Pomposificationalizing of English Prose

Never use a simple word when a larger, heavier, and uglier word will do.

For example:

Don't say

predict
when
prognosticate

will do.

Don't say

press (e.g., "press him")
when
pressure (e.g., "pressure him")
or, better yet,
pressurize (e.g., "pressurize him")
will do.

And don't use "and" or "also" when

additionally
will work.

Got the hang of it? Have you internalized the message? Are we on the same page? Are we marching to the beat of the same drummer? Are we collaboratively and coordinately synchronized?

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The dynamic evidence page

It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.

Should Jurors Be Allowed or Encouraged to Take Notes?

Cf. Clive Thompson, "The Pen That Never Forgets," NYTimes (Sept. 16, 2010)

Decades of research has found a strong correlation between good notes and good grades: the more detailed and accurate your notes, the better you do in school. That’s partly because the act of taking notes forces you to pay closer attention. But what’s more important, according to some researchers, is that good notes provide a record: most of the benefits from notes come not from taking them but from reviewing them, because no matter how closely we pay attention, we forget things soon after we leave class. “We have feeble memories,” says Ken Kiewra, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Nebraska and one of the world’s leading researchers into note-taking.

Later in the article the point is made that students do even better when they are allowed to use their instructors' notes instead of their own. This suggests jurors should be given transcripts of witnesses' testimony.

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The dynamic evidence page

It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.

A Thought about Human Rationality, Immanence, Improvement, and Transcendence

Very recently I sent a good friend the following thought:

The question of the relationship between native or inherited reasoning, on the one hand, and artificial or new forms of reasoning, on the other hand, is central. It certainly is the case that in some domains (e.g., the realm of chemistry) we have improved our reason. It is also the case in other domains (such as law) that we hope to improve on our prior and inherited reasoning. It is rare that we can entirely escape from inherited (and often tacit) reasoning. But we can improve or we hope to improve how well our inherited conceptual, reasoning, sensory etc. equipment works. I see the human animal as in part a self-organizing creature. But the human creature must work with [the equipment] it has at any given moment. There is a mystery here: The human creature has the power to use what it has to become more than it was. This applies to reasoning and inferential ability. But history proves that this can happen. Else how does one explain the existence and power of calculus?

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The dynamic evidence page

It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.