Name
Date
DIRECTIONS: In each pair both speakers are honest. Work out WHY they disagree, and whether anything could settle it.
DIFFERENT EVIDENCE
They are looking at different things, and both are looking honestly.
DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS
They mean different things by the same word, and have not noticed.
DIFFERENT VALUES
They agree about the facts and want different things.
1. A The bypass has cut traffic through the village by a third — the counter on the high street says so.
B Traffic through the village is barely changed — I sit in the same queue every morning at eight.
Which kind?
Could anything settle it?
2. A Fewer than one in ten students is absent on a given day, so attendance is not a problem.
B Nearly a third of students missed more than two weeks last year, so attendance is a serious problem.
Which kind?
Could anything settle it?
3. A The new houses will bring four hundred people and the shops need them.
B The new houses will bring four hundred people and the village will stop being a village.
Which kind?
Could anything settle it?
- Only one of the three can be settled by going and finding something out. Which, and what would you go and find?
- In pair 2, both numbers are correct. Explain how two correct numbers can point opposite ways.
- The two sentences in pair 3 are identical up to the comma. What does that tell you about what more evidence would achieve?
- Somebody in a values disagreement keeps producing more statistics. Why is that a waste of everybody's time — and what should they do instead?
- Think of a disagreement going on now, in the news or at home. Which of the three kinds is it? Be careful — it may be more than one at once.