Debates & Debating

From: Immortalist (Reanimater_2000_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/12/04

  • Next message: BostonBlackie©: "Re: [|-|erc] Re: [PO] Halting Problem Final Conclusion" 
    Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 20:30:57 -0700

    http://debate.uvm.edu/critadv.html
    http://debate.uvm.edu/watchdebate.html
    http://debate.uvm.edu/watchdiscussion.html
    http://library.trinity.wa.edu.au/subjects/english/drama/debate.htm
    http://www.schoolsdebate.com/

    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debatingourdestiny/
    http://www.debates.org/pages/history.html
    http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/debates/history/

    http://thesmash.bravepages.com/
    http://www.debating.net/flynn/anthems.HTM

    DEBATING IS LIKE SEX BECAUSE.........

        * If you last longer than five minutes, you're doing it wrong.
        * About three-fifths of it is unprotected.
        * You get marked on the quality of your extension.
        * It works best if there are at least seven other people involved.
        * With some honourable exceptions, children tend not to be very good at it.
        * Ditto animals.
        * The best place to do it is a debating chamber.
        * You tend not to be as good at it if you're drunk.
        * People who do it a lot with lots of different people tend to get quite good
    at it, but nobody has any respect for them.
        * Success depends to a great extent on your position on the table.
        * People spend much longer talking about it than actually doing it.
        * Most people are reluctant to admit that they aren't any good at it.
        * If you do it too much, your degree suffers.
        * Having more points than your partner can cope with is likely to be
    counter-productive.
        * Although you'll initially feel nervous about doing it for an audience, in
    time you'll realise you perform all the better with one.
        * The more you perform with the same partner, the more polished your
    performance will become.
        * Although the use of props can make a mediocre position easier to work with,
    it is frowned upon by the purists.
        * Your own opinion of your performance is generally higher than that of the
    judges, other participants, and your partner.
        * Always blame your partner for a poor performance.
        * The Dutch do it differently
        * Over-preparation can lead to a stilted performance
        * As a senior practitioner of the art, your most important duty is to
    instruct Freshers in its finer points.
        * While a poor performance can undermine you self-esteem, a good performance
    will be an ego-boost for years afterwards
        * The introduction of a squirrel is generally considered to be a faux pas
        * The Scottish do it a lot when young, and rarely when older
        * The Americans teach it in schools, and you can take a degree in it
        * The Australians televise it
        * The Far East have made an industry out of it
        * Watching other people do it, whilst sometimes an education, is usually
    mundane
        * Most people do it the same way for years
        * Men come miles before women
        * Dressing up then wining and dining is seen as a sure fire way of getting
    some

    --------------------------------------

    If we don't want to live in a dictatorship, we must be vigilant to preserve our
    freedoms. If we wish to preserve our freedoms, we must be informed on the
    issues. Being informed on the issues requires that we become acquainted with
    alternative points of view. The history of the development of civilization can
    be seen as the history of debates on issues. In democratic societies, there must
    be public debating. Newspapers have served this purpose and still do to some
    extent in this country. However, we seem to have lost awareness of the
    importance of debating since the days of Thomas Paine. The sixty-second sound
    bite has created the illusion that the important issues are all brief and
    cut-and-dried. The importance of debating issues is fading from the public
    consciousness. One principle aim of The Truth Tree is to increase awareness of
    the importance of rational debating. But constructive debating is an art. With
    all this in mind, the following suggestions are offered.

    Clarity: Avoid use of terms which can be interpreted differently by different
    readers. When we are talking to people who substantially agree with us we can
    use such terms as "rednecks" or "liberals" and feel reasonably sure that we will
    be understood. But in a debate, we are talking to people who substantially
    disagree with us and they are likely to put a different interpretation on such
    words.

    Evidence: Quoting an authority is not evidence. Quoting a majority opinion is
    not evidence. Any argument that starts with, "According to Einstein..." is not
    based on objective evidence. Any argument that starts with, "Most biologists
    believe..." is not based on objective evidence. Saying, "The Bible says..." is
    not evidence. Authorities and majorities can be wrong and frequently have been.

    Emotionalism: Avoid emotionally charged words--words that are likely to produce
    more heat than light. Certainly the racial, ethnic, or religious hate words have
    no place in rational debating. Likewise, avoid argumentum ad hominem. Personal
    attacks on your opponent are an admission of intellectual bankruptcy. Also, slurs
    directed at groups with whom your opponent is identified are usually
    nonproductive. Try to keep attention centered on the objective problem itself.
    There is a special problem when debating social, psychological, political, or
    religious ideas because a person's theories about these matters presumably have
    some effect on his own life style. It is unlikely that in an argument over the
    existence of quarks an opponent's sexual behavior would be brought up and it
    would be easier to keep attention centered on the problem itself than if the
    argument was about the importance of the family or whether a liberal or
    conservative position was preferrable in a political debate. A suggested solution
    is to make a general statement rather than one referring specifically to the
    opponent. In other words, rather than saying "and that's why you are such an
    undisciplined wreck" say, "a person adopting your position is, I believe, likely
    to become an undisciplined wreck because ..."

    "The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
    --- Richard Nixon

    A (Short) List of emotionally charged words and phrases:

        * Liberal!
        * Tax and spend!
        * Fascist!
        * Politically correct!
        * (The opponent) is spouting! his (whatever)!
        * All pejorative names for races, sexual preference, ethnic groups, or
    religions
        * Baby killer!
        * Socialist!
        * Hippy!
        * Druggy!
        * Saying that your opponent "trots out" his argument

    Causality: Avoid the blunder of asserting a causal relationship with the popular
    fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc which declares that because some event A
    happened and immediately afterward event B happened that event A was the cause of
    event B. (I knew someone whose car stalled on the way to work. She would get
    out and open the hood and slam it and then the car would start. Singing a song
    would have been just as effective to allow time for a vapor lock to dissipate!)
    Also avoid the popular fallacy that correlation proves causation. People who own
    Cadillacs, on average, have higher incomes than people who don't. This does not
    mean that if we provided people with Cadillacs that they would have higher
    incomes.

    Innuendo: Innuendo is saying something pejorative about your opponent without
    coming right out and saying it but by making more or less veiled allusions to
    some circumstance, rumor, or popular belief. If you want to see some excellent
    examples of innuendo, watch Rush Limbaugh. Politicians are, unfortunately,
    frequently guilty of using innuendo. It is an easy way to capitalize on popular
    prejudices without having to make explicit statements which might be difficult or
    impossible to defend against rational attack.

    Be sure of your facts. What is the source of your information? If it is a
    newspaper or a magazine, are you sure that the information hasn't been "slanted"
    to agree with that publication's political bias? Where crucial facts are
    concerned, it is best to check with more than one source. Often international
    publications will give you a different perspective than your hometown newspaper.
    Check to see whether the book you are using was published by a regular publishing
    company or whether it was published by some special interest group like the John
    Birch Society or a religious organization. These books cannot be trusted to
    present unbiased evidence since their motivation for publishing is not truth but
    rather the furtherance of some political or religious view.
    Could there be a bias here?

    Understand your opponents' arguments. It is good practice to argue with a friend
    and take a position with which you do not agree. In this way you may discover
    some of the assumptions your opponents are making which will help you in the
    debate. Remember that everybody thinks that his position is the right one, and
    everybody has his reasons for thinking so.

    Do not impute ridiculous or malevolent ideas to your opponent. An example of
    this is the rhetorical statement, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" This
    imputes or presupposes that your opponent has beaten his wife. One frequently
    sees references by conservative speakers and writers to the idea that gay
    activists want "special privileges." This would be ridiculous if it were true. It
    isn't true, but speaking as if it were true and well known to all is egregiously
    unfair to listeners or readers who may not be well informed. It is probably
    always wise to treat your opponent with respect, even if he doesn't deserve it.
    If he doesn't deserve respect, this will probably soon become obvious enough.
    There are all sorts of subtle ways to express hostility toward your opponent and
    it is almost always unwise to give in to them. That doesn't mean that you can't
    vividly and saliently present your criticisms of your opponent's beliefs or
    behavior. But beware of phraseology which simply makes him look ridiculous. An
    example of this came up recently. I was criticizing Pat Robertson's apparent
    belief that God punishes people who do not behave as he wants them to by sending
    storms or natural disasters of various kinds or even terrorists. I do think this
    is a childish and obviously invalid belief. Saying so is not a violation of any
    of the principles enumerated here. But I found myself saying that Pat Robertson's
    "Big Friend in the Sky" would do such and so. This is objectionable because it
    ridicules. It isn't as straightforward as simply saying that in my opinion Pat
    Robertson's belief is ridiculous. Another example is to say that nudists "prance
    around" in the nude. Of course it's inaccurate, but it ridicules and denigrates
    as well and shouldn't be allowed in a rational debate.

    Regression to the mean: Another source of error which occurs very frequently is
    the failure to take into account regression to the mean. This is a bit technical,
    but it is very important, especially in any kind of social or psychological
    research which depends upon statistical surveys or even experiments which involve
    statistical sampling. Rather than a general statement of the principle (which
    becomes more and more unintelligible as the statement becomes more and more
    rigorous) an example will be used. Let's consider intelligence testing. Perhaps
    we have a drug that is supposed to raise the IQ of mentally retarded kids. So we
    give a thousand intelligence tests and select the 30 lowest scoring individuals.
    We then give these low scoring kids our drug and test them again. We find that
    there has been an increase in the average of their IQ scores. Is this evidence
    that the drug increased the IQ? Not necessarily! Suppose we want to show that
    smoking marijuana lowers the IQ. Well, we take the 30 highest scoring kids in our
    sample and give them THC and test them again. We find a lower average IQ. Is this
    evidence that marijuana lowers the IQ? Not necessarily! Any statistician knows
    that if you make some kind of a measurement of some attribute of a large sample
    of people and then select the highest and lowest scoring individuals and make the
    same measurement again, the high scoring group will have a lower average score
    and the low scoring group will have a higher average score than they did the
    first time. This is called "regression to the mean" and it is a perfectly
    universal statistical principle. It has nothing to do with what is being
    measured. It works with molecules and atoms just as it does with juvenile
    delinquents and schizophrenics. What is going on here? The whole thing is based
    on the fact that when we measure something there is always a bit of luck
    involved. Sometimes this is called "chance". Statisticians call it "error". There
    are two kinds of luck: good and bad. Let's say you take an IQ test and score 130.
    That's pretty good, considering that the average IQ is 100. What part of your
    score is luck? Well, there's no way of knowing this, but we know that some luck
    was involved. Is it more likely that your true IQ is 129 but that you had enough
    good luck to make it 130, or that your true IQ is 131 and that you had enough bad
    luck to make it 130? Well, there are a lot more people whose true IQ is 129 than
    there are people whose true IQ is 131, so there are more ways to get 130 because
    of good luck than there are ways to make 130 because of bad luck. If you have
    understood this, go to the head of the class! But even if you haven't understood
    it completely, remember it. Failure to understand it has probably cost us
    billions of dollars. Another important fact about regression to the mean is that
    the less reliable the measurement is the more regression will occur.

    There are undoubtedly more points to be made here. Suggestions will be
    gratefully received. Larry has made the following suggestions:

        * Apply the scientific method.
        * Cite relevant personal experience.
        * Be polite.
        * Organize your response. (Beginning, middle, end.)
        * Treat people as individuals. (Not everyone who is pro-choice is also
    anti-gun.)
        * Cite sources for statistics and studies used.
        * Literacy works. Break posts into sentences and paragraphs.
        * Read the post you are responding to.
        * Stay open to learning.

    And DWA has reminded us that Carl Sagan had a "baloney detection kit." Here it
    is:

        * Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts
        * Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of
    all points of view.
        * Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no
    "authorities").
        * Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that
    caught your fancy.
        * Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
        * Quantify, wherever possible.
        * If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.
        * "Occam's razor" - if there are two hypotheses that explain the data equally
    well choose the simpler.
        * Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown
    to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, is it testable? Can others
    duplicate the experiment and get the same result?

    Additional issues are :

        * Conduct control experiments - especially "double blind" experiments where
    the person taking measurements is not aware of the test and control subjects.
        * Check for confounding factors - separate the variables.

    Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric:

        * Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
        * Argument from "authority".
        * Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker
    by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavourable" decision).
        * Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
        * Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).
        * Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is
    phrased).
        * Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
        * Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate
    sample sizes).
        * Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing
    astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below
    average intelligence!)
        * Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but
    scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they
    are not "proved").
        * Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down.
        * Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" -
    confusion of cause and effect.
        * Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an
    immovable object?).
        * Excluded middle -considering only the two extremes in a range of
    possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).
        * Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue
    fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").
        * Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle -unwarranted extrapolation of
    the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
        * Confusion of correlation and causation.
        * Straw man - caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to
    attack.
        * Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
        * Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police
    action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers. "An important art of
    politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have
    become odious to the public" .

    It has been pointed out by various participants that following these
    recommendations to the letter might make for dull reading. The idea is that a
    little invective is a good thing because it adds spice. An interesting example of
    this occurred in a nationally televised debate between Dan Quayle and Lloyd
    Benson. Quayle had just remarked on some similarities between himself and Jack
    Kennedy. Benson said, "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.
    But I can tell you one thing, Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy!" This was of
    course an argumentum ad hominem of the first water. But I would like to point out
    that a political debate and a scientific debate are two quite different things.
    But to concede the point somewhat I have a suggestion. Perhaps we could agree to
    divide our debating messages into two parts. In the first part it would be
    illegal to mention the opponent at all. The word "you" would be forbidden. Then
    the second part would allow judicious use of personal remarks. Writing a debate
    without using "you" is a very interesting exercise. I urge everyone to give it a
    try!

    (Incidentally, the fugue you have been listening to if you clicked on the icon at
    the top of the page was chosen because a fugue can be thought of as a debate. In
    this particular fugue there are three combatants represented by the three voices.
    There are notable discords sprinkled thoughout the fugue, but all is harmony at
    the end!)

    Should you be interested in learning more about the classical art of Argument,
    beyond what is contained here, following are links that will be of interest:

        * The web site of Asst. Professor James Pryor, Harvard University :
    Philosophical Terms and Methods.
        * DWA brought to our attention this excellent resource: The Colorado
    University List of Fallacious Arguments.

    http://www.truthtree.com/debates.shtml

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