1. "We can usually learn much more from people whose views we share than from people whose views contradict our own; disagreement can cause stress and inhibit learning."
(与我们)持相同意见者和持不同意见者对学习的作用
Let is retrospect to the river of history, in which human beings developed natural knowledge and formed diversified societies. It is commonly agreed and often supported by historical evidences that people usually acquire information and advance their particular way of consideration from those who share identical or similar views because disagreement can cause stress and thus inhibit learning, However, I partly agree with such opinion.
An infant begins its journey of learning several months after it is born by imitating adults' action such as following their gesture and open its mouth to babble even though its pronunciation may probably not be articulate. Then it acquire the ability of walking by trying to stand up as grown ups with its parents' assistance and finally dump this help. Juveniles form their own thinking pattern by practicing with their teachers as guidance. In these common circumstances there is no doubt that people learn skills, which they do not have at the beginning, from those who are already acquired rather than from the ones who cannot speak, walk or think logically. This remains a truth in the other sections of the society in that there is no practical value to learn from those who already share identical views with us because their opinions are merely copies of our own.
Secondly, contradict views can help complete and perfect our own views or provide us with new solutions and innovate perspectives, preventing us from limited fields of vision. Bohr, who received the Nobel Prize for physics chiefly for his work on the structure of atoms, once said that "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement, nut the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." Bohr himself has proved this statement by perfecting Rutherford's theory about what the inner structure of an atom is like. In Rutherford's theory, electrons travel all around the proton, but Bohr suggested that electrons only travel in certain successively orbits around the corn and the outer orbits can hold more electrons than the inner ones which has later been proved exactly the right model of atom structure.
However, identical views and similar views are two different conceptions. There may be no benefits in learning from identical ones, but similar opinions which have subtle differences can provide us with usefull details and it is quite often that whether one can be successful will be determined on such details. Unfortunately, people tend to appreciate similar views and disgust contradict ones. only those who can accept different opinions without pride and prejudice can acquire triumph.
In sum, human beings developed themselves from contradiction and it is such contradiction that provides the society with vitality and energy.