How To: Instantly Lose a Debate

Yup,
That's right, I know how to instantly lose a debate. I used to debate competitively when I was in school. Somewhere I have a box of trophies and plaques which should back up any claim I make to competence at debating. But today I'm not going to tell you How to Win. Today I'm going to tell you How to Lose. (and eventually tie this back to science, technology or speculative fiction writing)

It's easy to lose a debate. All you have to do is bring up one of the Forbidden Cases. These are cases (or 'debate topics' if you don't get the lingo) that will instantly polarize the room in such a way that the judges will have to give you the loss. I have seen this again and again in competition.

And I'm not suggesting you stand up and vomit in your first speech - that does not guarantee an instant loss, for proof look to the year Worlds was in Ireland.

More Below/Beyond the Link...


The Forbidden Cases:
Abortion
Euthanasia
The Holocaust/Israel

Some Non-Forbidden Cases that will likely lead to a loss in competition*
Death Penalty
Creationism in Schools or elsewhere
Marijuana

(*I should mention that these latter three are great starter debates out of competition to learn debating - just keep the debate on the floor - in other words nothing personal and when it's over leave the room friends. And again, these are lousy debates in competition.)

So why do the first 3 cases give you the loss? If it isn't obvious right away, then let me lay it out. People really care about those topics. Personal beliefs that have nothing to do with logic or reason.

In a normal debate tournament the participants are there for sport, competition, but not to actually challenge or defend their deep held personal beliefs. When things become personal all perspective is lost and the debate fails. This is why any government (case presenter in a debate) will instantly lose if they start a debate on those topics.

Now to bring us back to Science, Technology and Speculative Fiction writing.

Over at Space.com is a little bit of a bait/troll article about Wacky Scientific Theories.

Essentially the author: Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute, discusses some of the wacky theories that he has been sent over the years. Ideas like:

"Aliens came to Earth a long time ago to engineer a new species, and Homo sapiens is the product."

He then goes on to suggest in a pseudo serious manner that these people pursue publication of their theories. Ideally in an academic setting, however like Galileo, they can also self publish.

It's mean, what's he's done.
It may seem funny, but most Wacky Scientific Theories are like the Forbidden Cases, people actually care about these ideas. Watch the discussion thread to see people take the bait.

Calling out the Crazies Proponents of Alternative Theories with a half mocking, half serious approach is not the way to win this argument. And it is an argument. Bad Science is a serious problem that will not go away because of laughter. Educate, Educate, Educate. Science isn't mythology, you don't need to have special privileges to understand it. You just need to learn.

What Seth Shostak does is invite these people to participate in the scientific discussion without giving them a clue as to the tools, resources and knowledge that will keep them from being dismissed or marginalized in that discussion. I would have liked to have seen Seth Shostak discuss the years of study and education that he himself went through in order to acquire the status and credentials he has in the scientific community.

In fact what I would have liked to have seen even more is Seth Shostak call for greater education in the Scientific Method, in the fundamentals of Observation, Hypothesis, Experiment, Conclusion, and in how it's used in science ranging from biology to quantum mechanics. That would do more to address the problem of Bad Science than any dozen or hundreds of rejected journal submissions and self published wacky ideas. (In Shostak's defence he did state that "Data" backing the idea is valuable)

In Conclusion:
Seth Shostak brought up an important topic to many people, but he handled it badly, so I'm forced to give him the loss, even though I agree with everything he says.




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44th President of those United States

I say 'those' because I'm not American. However I have nothing but good feelings for my neighbours to the South nearly 99.999% of the time. With this new President will come a great number of changes in Science, Technology and Environmental policies.

Some of the changes that I await with Excitement:
The creation of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) position, this is an important step to bring the American Government's Policies and Technology into the 21st Century.
The replacement of the current FCC Chairperson, with someone who is able to understand and work with the desires of consumers and business.
Finally the Changes in Energy Policy driven by people like Steven Chu as the Energy Secretary, while still having someone running the EPA who actually understands the environments needs/limits.

Ultimately though I wish them (the Americans) more satisfaction with this administration than they had with the last one.

Watching the inauguration of Obama some things resonated with me. This is an office that has passed non-violently between it's holders 44 times now in history. This is a remarkable achievement for any country when you look at the longer history for Humans. When I read Speculative Fiction I typically find Democracies to be in the minority. Many times it's the dream of a protagonist, but just as many times I've seen it reviled by characters. The sad thing is that rarely a different alternative to Democracy is presented in these stories other than the various forms of Tyranny that we've known throughout history.

Why is it that a world with spaceships, massive power generation ability, and advanced biomedical treatments has a King? Technology both changes and enables change within the societies that spawns it. It is illogical to expect modern soldiers to carry swords on the battlefield, not when Guns exist. It should be equally illogical to expect future societies to govern themselves in limited traditional manners when new technology will exist.

I don't buy a King with a spaceship, but I would buy something like Realtime Democracy, a constant monitoring of opinions and beliefs of the existent society. If you watch 24 hour news you might believe we are already there.


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