If morality is incoherent, but what harm does it do. If the morality is coherent, what benefit do these little sins have. This means more strongly towards con given the above - but I would liked to have seen more here.
In terms of the overall conversion; con provides a kritik about people In Syria. I will say that Pro does very well recognizing fiat - that if everyone converted it wouldn’t be an issue. But also points out that just because it’s bad for some, doesn’t mean it’s on balance bad for all.
Saying this; though; on a technical note I’m not sure how well fiat applies here as it’s not “if everyone converted to Christianity then…” but a little bit more ambiguous.
The kritik itself isn’t enough to move the dial for me; I would assume by default more of an “on balance”, which cons argument doesn’t meet - but I would accept that there maybe some harm to certain people if they converted.
Overall weighting.
Weighting everything together with what I’ve established from the overall framing. Is that pro establishes that there is positive mental health benefits, and there maybe better treatment of each other if everyone went to Christianity. Con shows there could be a definitive harm from sins being treated as sins, and to lgbtq; and it may not be beneficial for everyone to convert due to death.
To me the harms are more clear cut for con; and a little bit more generalized and wishy washy for pros main point.
Without giving any clear cut weighting criteria; the lgbtq and possible harm from conversion significantly outweighs the benefits to mental health.
Pros main point about the benefits to society is potentially realizable but seems very wishywashy and Ill defined. If pro gave me a benchmark of how well crime could improve by (ie crime rate from christians to non christians) I could better rate this, but without this it’s more tricky. Worse is that con doesn’t really contest it directly, but sort of by undermining the morality element. Cons rebuttal gives a more concerte harm, which leans me in his direction weighing these two items. The bottom line here is that pros argument for improvements in crime and murder are not concrete and developed enough for me to award the debate on; while I can’t award the debate on the economic harm for the same reason - it at least feels a little more fleshed out. This, together with the lgbtq - which was fleshed out enough to award the debate shifts the needle to con enough for me to be happy awarding points rather than allotting a draw.
Con did provide an explanation of why the truth matters in R1, but I didn’t really get the rationale for why Christianity couldn’t provide any benefit if it wasn’t true.
What’s tough here, is that con didn’t provide a clear argument for the harms being false make; but pros response focused more on showing it could be true rather than the negating the potential harm. In these scenarios I tend to err in not awarding the debate on this sort of ambiguity, means I have to side with pro on the element of truth mattering in the absence of a clear rationale for why it’s a negative.
Given this, while I think con makes some great points about the truth of Christianity - the point doesn’t weigh into the resolution. As a result, even if I accept everything con says is true - it wouldn’t necessarily prove the resolution - as such I won’t review the truth of Christianity sections as they aren’t relevant to the burden.
Pro made an almost throwaway comment about the evidence for the resurrection as confirming the truth of Christianity - but this is not fleshed out in any way: so while proof of Christianity would win the debate for pro - he didn’t do nearly enough on this point to accept it on its own merit.
So let’s look at the values.
The values that pro gives - are two fold; that the moral teachings would reduce harm; and that there is a mental health benefit to being religious or christian.
Con didn’t not challenge either of these - which I think he should have, as they are easily challengeable.
The primary harms con raises is treatment and teaching of anti-lgbtq, and the incoherence of moral standards taught. Pro tries to claim this doesn’t matter by citing one form of Christianity where it isn’t an issue - which I am not buying given my thoughts above. Con does very well by citing examples in the Bible that are clearly against lgbtq - this wasn’t really addressed - so I have to accept the harm of lgbtqs as a way in which Christianity produces harms.
The second issue is the incoherent morality - which if followed would cause trillions of dollars of damage (not working on a Sunday was cited here). While both sides argued about whether things are sins or not - in the context of the debate - it’s not about whether something is a sin or not, but whether it does harm. In this case, con points out that some of these are only actually wrong if Christianity is true: but as neither side (other than the financial impact) pointed out either harms or benefits from these incoherent morality, it’s very hard to weight.
My Reading of the resolution to me the framing is fairly simple. Pro must show the value of Christianity AND provide justification why, in balance people should convert to it.
Con takes this approach, and my default position is to side with him. Pro offers some caveats to this: while the format does not offer much back and forth; it’s hard to weigh much.
Given how all the points are kinda intermingled and interrelated - I sort of wanted to start off at the beginning.
I think both sides sort of agree that one side has to show Christianity is valuable, and the other that it isn’t. The caveats in the first round by pro seem to try and set up a scenario where negatives can be knocked down on technicalities.
Past actions of Christianity? No specific type of Christianity makes the context of the resolution a bit slippery. I side with con on this side - if Christianity led to harm in the past, this should be used to determine whether there can be harm in the future: that being said, few real examples of past harm were used, making this point a little moot.
The second, about types of Christianity - inside with con too, it seems a little bit of a dodge where con can state things the Bible teaches, and if followed are bad; and pro can say “well not everyone believes that”, unless one can show what is or isn’t Christianity I think con and pro should be working on balance. Con shouldn’t invoke some special sect, as reasons Christianity has little value, pro can’t invoke progressive sects as reasons why issues specific of Christianity aren’t issues. This kind of only relates to one or two points con makes.
The biggest point of contention is that of truth. If Christianity was true - I would suggest that’s an automatic win by pro - so negating arguments for proof are necessary. That being said, if the harm from it being untrue is outweighed by the benefit of it being followed - it doesn’t have to be true to have value. So in this respect I side with pro.
I will say that pro has dedicated a lot of space to talking about whether Christianity is untrue. What I needed him to do was to give me a quantifiable harm from it being untrue that I can weigh against the benefits - but I didn’t get this.
You’re right - there are a couple of places I mixed the two up in the first: but in context it should be clear which side of the argument I am referring to - didn’t spot much in the subsequent two posts.
Explanations: in this section con broadly describes some of the issues with pros description, this goes back and forth a little: but really revolves around the same type of issues I described above. Pros responses are similarly themes as the above; and frankly having established the physical/causal point - con has already met the burden without this
Conclusion: pro makes hay of trying to explain coin tosses, but much of these are restatements of the central arguments above phrased in a different way. Add to this that it was merely a summary of a point that con won, the rebuttal of it didn’t help prove free will, or disprove determinism so I haven’t covered it in detail.
As a result: arguments to con.
Sources: IMO con won this debate with two great uses of sources. Pros sources on MRI was used to establish the core point that decisions are physical and occur prior to conscious awareness - which supports hi position; there was the nature article about being able to view and manipulate consciousness on a physical level - both of these satisfy cons central burden of showing our brains - and even the most abstract part of us - appear to operate under physical rules. This was central to con affirming burden.
Add on to this critically novel studies about psychopaths, and pedophillia induced by head trauma helps to produce a factual underpinning for the brain and our personality being inherently physical contrary to pros position.
Given that the facts cited by con basically won this debate - as opposed to most debates which are kinda part fact part logic - the excellent use of these sources here clearly need to be recognized.
Sources to con.
As always feel free to ask any questions you may have
Con builds up a decent case, he lays the groundwork with causality - that things occur because they have physical causes.
He lays the groundwork by explaining the brain is physical - the nature source was amazing here: this source helped pro establish the case that even something as abstract as consciousness has a physical background.
These two aspects together show that physical things follow physical laws, the brain is a physical thing; thus follows physical laws - and does a good job of explaining that it is simply the vast complexity of the brain that produces an illusion of indeterminism.
This culminates in the essence of cons argument that free will violates the laws of physics - by inherently violating causality of physics. Pro concedes this point in his reply; which digs a hole for himself, as in conceding this point; it allows con to press him on his burden of proof:
As pro concedes causality/physical laws must be violated for free will - con points out that claim must be supported - that pro must show that humans can create violations of causality. I agree that pro has the burden of proof to show this - and he does not.
Indeed a big part of pros response is to suggest the brain is in someway non physical : but if I match up the responses on either side : pro is claiming that will is not physical, and violates physical laws - but offers no proof: whilst con claims the brain is physical and does not violate physical laws - and offers proof (with the nature article).
On this broad basis - this debate is over at this point - I have a single point of contention for which can swing on single points of proof for which pro has offered none, and con has offered a great source. That clearly shows con has established their position.
Moving onto other points for completeness. Pro does make a series of rebuttals about the laws of physics and causality. Pros points seem caught up on questioning whether the current laws of physics are superlative (will never be disproven) whilst also accepting cons central premise. The issue pro has here is that he appears to concede the universal follows physical laws and is predictable; his argument appear mainly that because the predictable model doesn’t apply to all things that determinism can’t be true; and pins everything to this point
The issue with this, is that the aspect of the laws of physics con is hanging their argument is causality. The existence of predictive rules shows that physical things follow physical laws. In this respect pros objection on the ground of science utterly misses the mark - by suggesting the lack of ability of the standard model implies particles have free will. Even without cons counter that argument appears absurd on its face. Nonetheless con points out the issue with this claim: specifically that the failure of our models of the small to explain gravity does not imply that particles follow gravity.
Further, con points out obtuse it is to suggest that the failure of the standard model to explain gravity means that the brain can break the laws of physics: I agree, this objection appears absurd on its face.
But with this, and pros general objections about how the laws of physics may not be accurate or maybe incomplete do not address the core issue of causality and the brain being physical - indeed it appears in the remaining rounds pro offers mostly assertions that the brain is non physical, or has non physical attributes. Pro has to offer a justification of how the brain can be considered non-physical, or to not follow physical laws in order to win arguments. He does not do that; thus arguments must go to con.
Philosophical arguments are offered by con - suggesting that it is a truism that our behaviour is informed and controlled by past events and our personality. That our behaviour and decisions are derived from this and change as a result, is indicative of causality. Pro backs this up with another excellent source on mris of the brain structure of criminals - indicating decisions and differences can be attribute to physical impacts.
Pros response is a pretty crazy quote mine; suggesting that con not needing to break down all brain functions to functional blocks to show determinism was indicating that determinism didn’t apply. He goes onto link back to the issue with physics that I have covered. His main reply to this broad argument, though, is that some dependence on past events is okay for free will. This sort of makes sense, but does not undermine what con is arguing - that determinism explains these aspects.
So there are a large number of individual points raised here; I haven’t listed each and every one. But have covered the broad themes, the following are threads I didn’t cover:
B theory time. There’s a little back and forth on this: but it doesn’t prove free will, only potentially prove determinism - con already did that so does not need to be addressed.
Pro argues that Newton’s third law supports free will, and contradicts determinism. He describes his concept of free will (a) explicitly defining it as independent of external forces , defines the third law (b) describing how bodies interact with regards to force, defines free will again in (c) as independent of external forces. Pro then seems to just state the third law applies in (d) because actions will be opposed by others. Then goes onto list how there are reactions to choices.
The argument has two issues. Firstly, it’s not clear how the law applies to what pro is describing; pro simply says it does. His description of Newton is about forces, his description of will is about reactions to choices. Con points this out that con fails to describe a link between the two - which pro doesn’t really address (other than to talk about intelligence, not about the invisible link to sliding scales of reactions). I side with con on this; they don’t appear linked, and other than some similar terminology, con does not give me any reason to believe that both reactions to individuals and Newton’s third law is talking about the same thing.
Even were this not to be an issue, the main problem I have with pros argument here is the resolution: that there is no implicit explanation of why the choices leading to the reactions he’s talking about are free. If I accept that making choices agrees with Newton’s 3rd law, nothing about that means the choice is inherently free. Pros argument here just seems nebulous and muddled at best; it leaps right into its conclusion with first establishing a particular thesis.
Pro argues that mris shows free choice. Reading this, pros own argument appears self refuting - that decisions are formed outside of conscious understanding. Pro goes onto make a set of claims that he doesn’t seem support; saying that coming to conclusions is not possible with determinism. There appears no reasoning presented here, simply pro telling me - effectively - that coming to choices is not possible in determinism.
Con neatly outlines this; con specifies what determinism is, that choices are possible, and brains can make decisions - it’s just those decisions are governed by physical rules - not our free choices. Con also points out that pros own source justifies free will - I agree - and this flip of a source is absolutely devastating to pros position.
Pro doesn’t seem to contest any of this in his reply; he primarily tells me that decision making is non physical. In response.
Given that again, cons point is nebulous at best; and appears more to simply be concluding free will exists without a justification, and telling me all the things that can’t happen if determinism is true without offering a good justification of why - cons rebuttal here stands and I have to reject this one too.
For the third point, pro offers the idea that courage and backlash against oppression is evidence of free will; or at least that free will is the best explanation. While there are a lot of sub points here, they seem to boil down to the same issues above. Nothing about this argument gives me a) an argument about why x is more likely if free will exists vs determinism or b.). That free will better explains a given event than determinism.
Con gives a basic summary outlining this objection; though I would have liked to have seen him present a more robust challenge. I think con should have spent less time on the specifics of pros claims here, and condensed a response that highlighted that pro was assuming his own conclusion and misrepresenting determinism a little - there was some of this, but not enough for me to fully reject pros constructive (only to consider it incredibly weak)
This is a case of the Croissant calling the palmier flakey.
However note below “Con mostly shot himself in the foot, as in the penultimate round, he could well have defended the claims, or refuted pros objections - but really just restated his case. As a result; this debate was really two rounds of pro vs one of con - which is very hard to come back from.”
That without aesthetic beauty, one could not love ones parents or friends as much. This is paraphrasing a little, but the primary gist. I don’t feel con actively justifies why he thinks this is true, making this a bit of a stretch. As con goes on, he seems to undermine his position by attributing the love to non-aesthetic beauty; and then sort of trying to tenuously link the two back together by stating one has an impact on the other, such that what starts out as a stretch, but a valid point ends up getting less valid and more muddled. This is perhaps linked in with the definitions that con put forward perhaps - that con was trying to argue that anything that gives pleasure counts as aesthetic beauty; it’s not entirely clear as con does not explicitly link everything together - but as the definitions went pros way, trying to figure out how it applies to cons definition isn’t necessary.
I think pro does well enough simply separating the love for a parent vs what they visually look like; typing back to the non-aesthetic aspect, and helps nullify cons point; regardless of whether this is linked to the definitions or not
The next thrust con makes; though is never fully fleshed out into an argument revolves around dullness and lack of pleasure if there was no aesthetic beauty. Pro counters here saying that the lack of aesthetic beauty doesn’t require a lack of appreciation or lack of enjoyment; that seems inherently valid on its face: this really boils down to which definition we take; as we have taken pros definitions, there is nothing about absence of aesthetic beauty that would prevent things being enjoyable, so it would appear pro does enough on this point.
The final aspect where con attempts to justify their position is better; is the attempt to point out that without suffering there can be no pleasure. This is a pretty valid (albeit a little labored) point; I think this was the better of cons argument - but was justified over perhaps two lines; with the remainder being linked back to the dullness argument I just referred to.
To me it’s not fully clear whether this is a new argument; or the same argument sort of justified a different way. As a new argument, pro points out that the pleasure of one person doesn’t justify the suffering of another, it seems to have at minimum rebuttal. Given this, and given that pros rebuttal was not challenged; it doesn’t meet cons burden.
Note: as with pro, there was a lot of description and text that fed into remarkably few individual points, I’ve omitted much of the specific detail from cons first reply as the bulk of it appears mostly reiterating the same point, with the bulk of the definition simply leading to the conclusion that aesthetic beauty covers a broader set of things. Likewise the majority of the remainder is talking about ugliness, aesthetic beauty, suffering, etc - with a whole ton of words being used to effectively justify pros position. The remainder really boils down to the three points above. I did not feel it necessary to talk explicitly about each one of the examples con gives, as they all fit into those limited sets of arguments.
In this respect - all that being said: pro gives me a reason why aesthetic beauty causes clear harms. Con provides reason why aesthetic beauty is necessary, but this appears based on overly broad definitions that pro countered and was not defended. The remaining case con made primarily had the effect of bolstering pros position ; with the remainder neatly disposed of in pros reply.
Con mostly shot himself in the foot, as in the penultimate round, he could well have defended the claims, or refuted pros objections - but really just restated his case. As a result; this debate was really two rounds of pro vs one of con - which is very hard to come back from.
Reading the resolution and the description; the debate itself seems a fairly interpreting proposition. Pro must show me that the net benefits of a world in which AB does not exists exceed the net harms - and vice versa.
Pros central argument, is fairly simple: that there is a great of suffering caused by holding up aesthetic beauty ideals - emotional, social etc; even economic harm by people spending money living up to a standard of beauty. Anorexia, discrimination, etc.
This central plank from pro, seem pretty reasonable as a starting point; and if there were no other argument, it’s sufficient to meet the burden. Pro shows the principle of aesthetic beauty is harmful.
Note: there was a lot of thought out into explanation and justification - which I felt added a fair amount of clarity - but all boils down to the very narrow points. As I think the main point is we’ll covered, I didn’t go into all the detail on each sub point.
Con starts off challenging the definitions a little. Nothing about the definition seemed inherently unreasonable. Though it does appear that he’s trying to cast a very broad net on the definition to include anything that gives pleasure. I think pros response to limit “beauty” to physical aesthetics only (ie: physical aspects of something that are considered beautiful). Pro goes to great length to justify the original definitions by separating beauty as a physical attribute vs beauty as a description of an experience. As this clarification seems reasonable - and was unchallenged by con, I have to go with pros definitions.
Con then starts by largely agreeing with pro - that aesthetic beauty causes harm and hardship - in fact, the vast majority of cons first round is basically spelling out pros case: there’s no need to spend so much time on it - and it times it felt pretty gratuitous for no appreciable reason. One of the main thrusts con makes is that those that are beautiful suffer also due to their beauty - but as Pro points out, in the next round, this actually bolsters pros position.
There were a few other places where con appears to try and justify their burden:
Bones is probably more justified in suggesting that I has ignored his argument as I didn’t really talk about his rebuttal of P1: which would also likely have won him the debate IMO; I didn’t cover it as on its own for P2 doubt added, pro has established his burden for debate; and con did not
I have had the objections shared: while I won’t quote the PM; I would prefer to make the response public.
I explained why I thought both of the arguments were kritiks - one because it challenged whether things could be proven which is an implicit assumption of the resolution ; the second I pointed out challenges the definition uses in the resolution itself. I didn’t do this in conduct, but in the arguments section, so I think I explained why I felt these were kritiks. 949 left several key rebuttals until the last round on several key points : for which pro points out would consist of a last round blitzkrieg: and argued that it amount to poor conduct if you did it. The point of this is that 949 withheld key rebuttals to dropped arguments until the last round - not the generalized back and forth of stuff you had already been talking about since the start; and thus offered their first rebuttal to these points in a way that their opponent could not respond. The first kritik I spotted and pro didn’t - I would not have awarded conduct on this. The second kritik was not substantial, and on its own I wouldn’t have awarded conduct, the final round rebuttal I would have shrugged off had pro not justified why it deserves a conduct ding; if it were just that; I would have held off - but the last round rebuttals and the first kritik was enough to push me over.
With the second: I dont always reference all the individual points and give more words to explain why arguments didn’t work than the debater did making it - typically if i I find a swathe of arguments irrelevant to the resolution, I’ll talk about it broadly, but may not talk about every specific argument.
The rebuttal to the video to support God is irrelevant to the resolution - as even if I accept it as true, it doesn’t affirm the resolution; and secondly it forms a new affirmative argument that I am unable to consider because it’s the final round; so I kinda considered it as part of the blizkrieg. This is what I meant by “tangling in the weeds of irrelevance”
The issue I had with cons arguments about past present and future; is that he conceded a theory of time was false; he has to explain why, if this theory is false, that the universe could still have begun to exist consistently with the kalam. The only place they really tries to do that, was with their argument about string theory - which as I explained was kinda explained by pro. That’s kinda why I listed that as the main part of the argument - as it’s the only point that could affirm the resolution. I thought about writing a sentence about this, but I felt it was part of the geneal theme I highlighted in pros constructive section about forgetting what they’re arguing for/irrelvance.
To clarify specifically - the a/b theory put forward by pro and as argued is critical to Kalam P2 not because there is no past/present/future - but that kalam (and a-theory) requires that there is only present exists; and the universe is progressing through a series of presents - Tensed time. B theory treats time as a dimension; while we may observe the universe travelling through presents - all points are as real as any other - so as people argued, you can’t really say it begins to exist in any meaningful sense Arguing the past present or future do really exist, are orthogonal to that point; and without being tied into a thesis about how one may conclude the universe began to exist in the b theory - the point doesn’t really matter IMO - con was arguing on more of a side track that doesn’t appear clearly linked to the resolution.
If con hadn’t conceded a theory was false, or had spent any time explaining explaining how premise 2 was valid despite a theory being false, I may have talked about this in more detail: which is mostly what I was talking about in the section where I explained you were not really affirming your burden in paragraph 3/4/5 in post 13.
The vote could have been in error; I am human and make mistakes, and I may have missed something - I don’t think I have, but I’m always willing to take another look - if you think there was a problem with it, please feel free to tell me; I’m sort of intrigued as to what specifically people thought was wronf
Please bear in mind that when I’m reviewing a debate; I’m reading it about 27 times, I skip back and forward in individual points - and when I get to the end, I try and double check my key points I missed, and check explicitly for stuff that I say was needed but not present, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
I actually recall getting to the end after not finding an affirmative for con; and finding his reference to where he claimed he had: going back and realizing it’s stuff that I already dealt with.
As a first step. I will review an argument, figure out what it’s saying, then work out whether - if I accepted it - whether it would prove the resolution. If it doesn’t, I won’t spend time critiquing the finer back and forth on it - that’s what happened in this one. Half of the arguments weren’t clear, or didn’t affirm the resolution.
This doesn’t mean I didn’t miss anything, so by all means if you think I left anything out - I’m only human - I’m happy to reassess if you let me know.
Con argues he has proven his case within his rebuttals, and i will cover them here:
Abortion is legal and accepted by society. If con had given evidence or argument that this was accepted by society - it would have led to a win. He did not. If he had argued that legality was a moral standard - I would award the sun. He did not.
The closest con came was suggesting that morality is arbitrary - and as a result society can make whatever rules they want.
A fetus cannot have moral value
In his rebuttals con hinges his main points on the idea that a fetus has a different moral value - based on its moral agency, mental capacity and personality. It is indistinguishable in properties from other animals; the chicken killing example was really, really great - we accept that its fine to kill other creatures that don’t have moral agency. This is rounded off by cons argument that abortion is justified to save impacts on the woman. The coup de gras was pointing out that the justification pro uses to kill rapists could arguably used to justify abortion as moral.
The area that is holding me back - is that it’s hard for me to disentangle cons justification for why killing a child is not moral, but killing a fetus is. It’s touched upon throughout, but never concisely explained until the final round. Pro does himself no favours here either; the argument boils down to the choice being arbitrary (which it appears to be the case with his position too). Con does cover some aspects in his final defence.
If I were to compare how many things the different systems seem to explain, cons explains animals vs humans; self defence, etc; pros doesn’t fully explain either satisfactorily. So cons seems like the better standard to determine the morality of killing. I keep coming back to the self defence issue, using killing a rapist to justify abortion. Pointing that out, IMO was so devastating that it makes up for the poorer elaborating in other areas.
With that all being said; cons affirmative case is too sparse, and too limited for me to award the win; while I came within a hairs breadth of doing so - there’s just not enough argument affirming the position for me to justify cons BoP is met. Most of cons burden is murky - albeit less so than for pro - meaning that I would be awarding this based on a single paragraph of the entire debate that pro wasn’t able to defend.
As neither side met their BoP - I think this one is a tie.
Arguments tied.
Conduct: con spent a lot of the debate calling pro a liar, or a hypocrite - that’s not cool at all; this is a debate. I’m not going to award conduct here, but wanted to point it out. Treat the other person with respect, and as if they’re arguing in good faith.
Pro offers a syllogism. That abortion is murder; while he doesn’t explicitly justify why murder is immoral (again no standard), I think its reasonable. Pro goes on to clarify (after contest by con) that murder is the concept of unjustified killing. As before, pro goes from something that seems reasonable, to something that seems specifically ad hoc. Without pro making an attempt to explain what the standard to use to determine whether a murder is “justified” or not - I find it hard to accept this argument.
Con provides a great definition as to why it can be considered justified - by arguing that pregnancy is harmful - pro doesn’t really respond to this other than to say that desire is trumped by kids. In the final round, con points out the beautiful contradiction between killing in self defence being okay, and also claim for that desire does not trump life. This was particularly well spotted and well presented.
This effectively builds up a strong case that pros moral statements - which started our sounding definitive appear arbitrary and ad hoc when examined - are invalid.
Uncertainty.
This argument is odd. It argues that if one is uncertain about whether the fetus is not a person, abortion is unjustified. I think that’s perfectly logical - but fits outside the resolution. If I accept it without reservation - it doesn’t add to pros burden. If con argues that the fetus is not a person, for him to meet his burden; he must meet his burden of proof to show it, if he does - then it would kinda affirm the resolution and this forth argument. That is to say that I feel this argument is largely redundant.
As a result of these; I don’t think pro has met his burden, but the question remains whether con has met theirs, as is clearly stipulated by the rules.
Con implies that if something is not on balance immoral (his opponents burden), it’s on balance modal (his burden), as it is no amoral.
I don’t buy this for a second, as the default position in this appears to be that abortion is on balance neither moral or immoral - a grey area.
Neither side presents a framework to allow me to judge whether things are moral or immoral. Both rely appealing to my (as a voter) moral intuition - that’s really, really bad for both sides, as it makes me have to decide what is moral at some level, rather than having you as debaters show me.
Inconsequential difference.
Pro argues that killing a toddler is immoral, and as there is no consequential difference between the two, it’s immoral to kill fetuses too.
Without a moral framework this is hard to assess; and this is made harder when pro also suggests the two are not completely morally equivalent in R2. Con nails pro to the wall with this. suggesting that if these things are inconsequential why is there a moral difference: con ha also pointed out that chimpanzee zygotes would be considered morally different even due to their similarity. Both of these critical rebuttals were ignored by pro.
Accepting as true Pros argument that life begins at conception and is the only point at which a consequential difference exists - cons unchallenged rebuttals does enough to undermine pros conclusion - if they don’t have the same moral value in other ways: why this one?
While this doesn’t prove cons position - it does make pros argument appear arbitrary; and in the absence of a moral framework by which to judge things - I have to reject this one.
Note1: this wound was entirely self inflicted by pro - he could have stood his ground and argued they are both morally equivalent with little issue IMO, and I would have probably accepted it.
Note2: pro didn’t establish a moral standard, nor a standard for discussing what is “consequential” was or not. It was all implied, and while con picked up on the first, he didn’t explicitly pick up on the second.
What pro has done; is demonstrate that unless A-theory is true, the KCA is false; con agrees A-theory is false, and doesn’t really challenge pros key point, that KCA described “causes” are predicated on A theory. To me, at this point the debate is over.
What I think con tries to do, is try and explain how the KCA could still be true with some other theory of time. Con ambled through a description of string theory: but pro correctly points out that this matches the B theory of time too.
At this point I think con lost track of what they were trying to argue. There was a lot of back and forth on scripture, and talking about what a possible explantation would look like.
Distilling all this down: the way I view this resolution, is that to win, con needs to show that both the premises are true, and the conclusion of God follows. For Pro - he needs to invalidate one or more of the premises and/or show the conclusion doesn’t follow.
Con didn’t meet his burden, he neither showed the conclusion followed, nor that the premises were true - reviewing where the passages he claimed he showed the premises were true, it seems to show nothing of the sort.
Pro doesn’t do the best job; R1 has a great take down using A-theory, which was never really challenged and sort of forgotten about; followed by tangling in the weeds of irrelevance. But what pro does do, is provide significant doubt of the veracity of P1, in round 1, and keeps dragging con back to it. In this respect: pro must get the arguments, though based on points rather than K/O.
As a result - arguments to pro.
Conduct: Con makes two kritiks and a last round blitzkrieg. I was borderline for conduct as pro didn’t mention one Kritik, and both were inherently irrelevant. But after pro specified for con not to make a last round rebuttal - only for con to make a last rebuttal pushes it over the edge for me; pro convinced me that the last round rebuttal was unfair, and the two rule violations with a stipulated penalty of conduct violation makes it clear a conduct mark down is warranted.
Even if accept it this without challenge, the argument torpedoes both sides of the debate and doesn’t meet cons burden. There was a laboured argument that if pro cannot disprove it, then con is affirmed, but it’s not clear at all how this is the case.
In addition, this appears a straight up Kritik - though pro doesn’t point this out. The argument appears to challenge an assumption inherent in the resolution.
(4) Newton: Con made an argument concerning Newton and the KCA - if I accept all of this as-is, it still isn’t clear how this supports the resolution, and so can be rejected. At best con is arguing that all things must have a notional cause - however pro counters with QT, indicating that not everything has a notional cause; this was ignored by con in the final round.
(5) god within nature.
Again, even if I accept that flawed definitions of supernatural precludes a “within nature” deity - that doesn’t appear to show the KCA proves or does not prove such a deity exists. So as before, I’m left stumped as to why con thinks this supports his case. At best it challenges the definition in the resolution - which con accepted - but that renders this a second kritik as pro points out. Con attempts to defend the kritik by pointing out something about the sentence making no sense in its own - it is unclear what con meant here.
Pro constructive.
Special relativity and retrocausality. Con drops these arguments until the last round, and as they were dropped until pro could no longer respond, I’m going to ignore their rebuttal. As a result this means I have to assume that the A theory of Time is invalid. This appears to be a position conceded by con too. Saying this I feel This was weakly explained by pro.
Pro neatly ties the KCA to causality, that linear time with team is necessary for things to “begin”, and that a tenseless B theory time would invalidate the inherent premises.
Cons response was to point out that old theories are often superseded (pro countered that the KCA is older - genius rebuttal btw!)
I’m not going to award this; but I came close, cons formatting and style made its incredibly difficult to follow the arguments they were making, I could probably have justified a ding here as a result, but I’ll chalk it down to style for now.
General:
To me, both pro and con sort of missed the fundamental issue with the KCA - which is that the KCA proves that the universe has a cause, but nothing about it necessitates that the cause is a supernatural deity. Pro touches upon this slightly in R3, but doesn’t give it any real ink.
Con doesn’t cover this AT ALL. For me, without con explaining how the universe having a cause proves God, he cannot meet his burden. Everything else is just dancing around a syllogism that doesn’t show what Con thinks. The only reason I have not just called this here, is that pro seems to implicitly argue as if should the KCA be valid, it proves God.
Everything con said could have been undermines had pros entire R1 been:
“If The KCA is valid, and the universe has a cause, there is no necessary reason why that cause must be a supernatural deity”
I’m not swaying my vote on this; but just pointing a big chasm that probably should have been argued but wasn’t.
Con constructive.
I’m going to start here, as when reading the arguments it was complete unclear what the constructive argument con was making. Con must offer a reason to me as to why the KCA proves God. A lot of that argument was implied but not written down.
In R1 (3) con makes an argument about “proof” and science: I am not going to lie - after multiple reads I am not confident I fully understand what con was trying to argue, it seems that the argument appears to simply muddy the waters about can be proven or not.
I would be happy to make another debate: feel free to challenge me, I would like to propose a couple of changes if you were redoing it.
If you could make it 4 rounds, to allow a rejoinder/conclusion (always off putting not being able to offer objections to a rebuttal), and if you’re willing, going up to 7500 words; still not lots, but means that I don’t have to bitly all my links, or shorten bottled water to BW to make the limit :)
What I did in rebuttal 1, is use a similar approach to the Drake equation; assigning odds to the events and scenarios you listed, then starting with your 6.4m intelligent life forms, wiggling these planets down to how many of them we should have observed. The number at the end of each sentence is the number of planets that have evolved intelligent life that pass the filter you added; even with tiny numbers; there would be a enough close by species that could potentially have either made contact or have been observed.
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>Reported Vote:DynamicSquid // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to cross
>Reason for Decision:
Crossed, well done! You have clear and concise points, and they were well organized. Keep it up! As for you Dynasty, I've brought some advice:
a) Don't waste your time arguing with your opponents sources, argue with his contentions directly
b) Next time, please at least try...
Reason for Mod Action> This vote fails to explain sources, conduct or spelling and grammar criteria and is thus insufficient.
For the arguments portion, as a voter you must survey the main arguments and counter arguments both sides make and provide a rational of why one was better than another in order to reach a decision. This point is thus insufficient too.
While the voting criteria may seem a bit harsh; the purpose is to allow debaters to have a better understanding of why one side one won over another and to allow; as well as to dissuade grudge voters and those that vote with their bias. This is not to say your view of who won is incorrect, or to accuse your of grudge voting; however in the interests of transparency we often need to see information about how this vote was arrived at for it to count. There is more information on the detailed voting policy covered in the CoC.
Hi christen, you can edit your vote for a short period after voting; I can remove it for you to let you repost if you no longer have the delete icon on the vote.
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>Reported Vote: 855h01E // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to pro
>Reason for Decision:
supa dudz completley destroyed his opponent
Reason for Mod Action> This vote is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
Hi Jeff, while I sound super formal - it’s an easy mistake ; and an issue we haven’t been able to fully resolve yet, so don’t worry.
Please be aware that there are also rules surrounding voting, and what qualifies as valid. You can take a look here for when you’ve met the voting criteria: https://www.debateart.com/rules
I humbly submit my vote.
Which participant provided more convincing arguments?
-It appears that neither side agreed to the other side's definition of "Good." Pro started out with a definition, but Con proposed a different definition, but neither confirmed the others. The BoP appears to be on Pro, but without an agreed-upon definition for "Good" I, as a voter, am left to wonder which definition to use for judging.
-I thought Pro had some good Round 1 arguments. Con's Round 2 arguments were equally as good but did neglect to rebut Pro's first-round arguments.
-Con FF the final round.
-Based on Con's Round 4 FF and their lack of rebuttal in Round 2, Pro wins this criterion.
Which participant provided the most reliable sources?
- Both sides provided sources.
- One of Pro's sources was invalid. Con calls them on it. Pro did not respond with a better source for said point.
- Con wins this criterion.
Which participant had better spelling and grammar?
- Both sides made spelling errors, but one side did worse than the other on spelling and grammar.
- Pro's spelling and grammar errors are bad enough to flip the switch to Con's favor.
- In the interest of brevity, I will state only a few errors out of many that Pro made (One from each Round)...
---Round 1 - [A1} P2. "Summits have been never successful...." should have been, "Summits have never been successful..."
---Round 2 - Demographics 2) P1. "...white people and what there belief is. Liberal started there whole movement..." -- "There" should have been "Their"
---Round 3 - Concluding Statement P2 "I did not use much sources in these arguments,..." "Much" should be "Many"
- Con wins this criterion.
Which participant had better conduct?
- In Round 4, Pro should have waived, but instead used the Round 4 argument section to make disparaging remarks against Con, "My opponent forfeited his concluding statements. Boohoo:("
- Con wins this Criterion.
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>Reported Vote: Sigmaphil// Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to pro for arguments 4 points to con for all other categories
>Reason for Decision: see above.
Reason for Mod Action> S&G is borderline (what makes it borderline is that the voter doesn’t explain what makes the errors excessive - however this is implicit in the vote). Conduct is borderline (you have to compare behaviours, and as one side forfeited and the other was rude - according to the vote, I could have viewed this as insufficient too - but given the nature of the conduct mentioned I need to give the benefit of the doubt)
Sources are insufficient: the key point in sources is that you must compare the specific impact of the sources on the debate, using an example to show how the argument is bolstered or harmed by the source.
Arguments are also insufficient. As a voter you have to show you have gone through the main arguments and counter arguments from both sides, and weigh them all to reach a decision: the voter doesn’t do this.
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>Reported Vote: Jeff_Goldblum// Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to con.
>Reason for Decision: Con's arguments were more fleshed out and better structured. In the end, Pro forfeited.
Reason for Mod Action> This vote is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
The typical creationist argument is that scientists haven’t provided a detailed, end to end, evidence based explanation of the origin of life; AND have not successfully reproduced life using this abiotic process in the lab - so we must accept an asserted explanation that God did it, with no explanation, no evidence and no predictive ability.
Assume you have a production line - what if it produces is other production lines? Older production lines shut down, and the child production lines produce their own production lines.
What if the production line doesn’t produce an exact copy of itself, but can create an inexact duplicate?
What if these production lines shut down if they can’t find access to materials, or are killed by other production lines?
What if a difference created by inexact copying allowed the production line to be more efficient? Or help extract raw materials from the environment better than competitors.
What if one of the changes the production line made, was to modify the colour of the production lines it produces?
No it doesn’t. What aspect of this is hard for you to understand?
Cells and production lines work in completely dissimilar ways - as I explained in the post below which you ignored. The only similarity is that cells and production lines take inputs and transform them into outputs via a sequence of steps.
Thats the only similarity - and it’s a similarity also shared with many things that aren’t designed, so having that property is not sufficient to claim cells are designed.
Pointing out that the cell works completely and fundamentally differently from a production line at every level, and that the aspects of a production line that are unique to designed things do not apply to cells, and that the only things cells have in common with production lines, it also has in common with fire and flood deposition - very much demonstrate the way you are comparing cells and production lines is fundamentally false, and you cannot use the analogy to infer design - due to all the major differences.
As I keep saying you’re trying to manufacture intent in cells, not by demonstrating cells have key features that demonstrably require a designer - but using loaded analogy, terminology and language to insert your creator where it does not actually exist.
Ribosomes aren’t “made by something” and do don't “make” anything and nothing is “constructed” - a chemical reaction occurs that converts amino acids into chains. Just Chemical reactions.
The “intelligence” you are arguing in the process comes solely from you using human words that imply design. Unfortunately, the words you use to describe something cant change what that something is.
No matter how much you refer to a cell as a production line, no matter how often you use loaded words that imply intent like “made” and “create”, the nature of what a cell is won’t change; it is now and will remain a set of sequential chemical reactions unique only due to the size of the chemicals involved and the result they produce.
What happens in a cell, is that there are a series of chemical reactions that use enzymes to break down incoming material and then uses another enzyme to reassemble it into long chains, the chemical order of those changes depends on the chemical structure of another chemical.
This is almost identical to how fire works - the only difference is that in a cell there are more steps, and the molecules involved have more atoms in them.
The problem isn’t that we don’t understand - it’s that your explanation and logic is really bad
While it’s nice you unilaterally assert, with no attempt at argument, that a basic sequential process is all that is required for something to be designed - that’s patently untrue.
As I said, combustion, breaks down individual raw materials, then in a sequence of steps reassembles the molecules into a lower energy state - fire is a production line.
The process of a river meandering, flooding and manufacturing an ox bow lake - again a sequence of assembly steps.
These process are clearly not intelligently driven, yet match the process criteria of a production line.
The sequence of steps is not indicative of intelligence, as there is nothing about such sequences that are inherently impossible without intelligent intervention.
A production line on the other hand, which is physical assembly with external acting objects or individuals that are driven from a completely separate mechanism that is separate and distinct from the thing being created - and fundamental re-ordering at the macroscopic level using process and mechanisms that fall outside those that can occur without direction.
You keep ignoring the fact that the aspects that make us aware things are created intelligently are not shared by life.
But it’s not the same. They are not at all the same other than trivial similarities of process - like you said.
That’s the only thing they really have in common - both have a sequence of steps that are are followed in some sequence from which something else comes out that is bigger than any of the individual parts.
That’s what is similar between a production line and a cell - and when you express it like that, it doesn’t seem at all indicative of intelligence. It’s only when you deliberately push human words, and human concepts onto the cell (which doesn’t have them), does it sound like it.
That’s the problem you have - you talk about life using human terminology of designed things - and rely on these tenuous comparisons to inject the design part. In reality the aspects of designed things that lets us know they are designed are not shared by life - but that’s hard to separate when you use these analogies.
I completely understand what you’re saying, it’s just incorrect for the reasons I keep explaining and you keep ignoring.
Fire - and any chemical reaction - follows the same “process”. Flood deposition and erosion follows the same “process”
The “process” of a production line is simply just set of successive steps that change a set up of input materials into a given output.
When you make fatuous comparisons, you bring in and imply properties and attributes that we know where designed - but aren’t shared. When you strip away all the differences and actually list what’s really common between a production line and a cell - you’re left with something so superficial it’s clearly not indicative of intelligence.
Unfortunately, your problem is that you are under the false impression that the tenuous and superficial similarities of two things highlighted by analogies used to paraphrase what happens - is equal to deep and low level identity between two things.
It seems you continue to flat out ignore this critical and fundamental issue with your argument.
No amount of trivial and superficial similarity between a production line and cell chemistry will change that a cell is completely and fundamentally different at every level from a production line.
I won’t be able to vote on this one in time.
You only normally only use 9 characters per debate round.
If morality is incoherent, but what harm does it do. If the morality is coherent, what benefit do these little sins have. This means more strongly towards con given the above - but I would liked to have seen more here.
In terms of the overall conversion; con provides a kritik about people In Syria. I will say that Pro does very well recognizing fiat - that if everyone converted it wouldn’t be an issue. But also points out that just because it’s bad for some, doesn’t mean it’s on balance bad for all.
Saying this; though; on a technical note I’m not sure how well fiat applies here as it’s not “if everyone converted to Christianity then…” but a little bit more ambiguous.
The kritik itself isn’t enough to move the dial for me; I would assume by default more of an “on balance”, which cons argument doesn’t meet - but I would accept that there maybe some harm to certain people if they converted.
Overall weighting.
Weighting everything together with what I’ve established from the overall framing. Is that pro establishes that there is positive mental health benefits, and there maybe better treatment of each other if everyone went to Christianity. Con shows there could be a definitive harm from sins being treated as sins, and to lgbtq; and it may not be beneficial for everyone to convert due to death.
To me the harms are more clear cut for con; and a little bit more generalized and wishy washy for pros main point.
Without giving any clear cut weighting criteria; the lgbtq and possible harm from conversion significantly outweighs the benefits to mental health.
Pros main point about the benefits to society is potentially realizable but seems very wishywashy and Ill defined. If pro gave me a benchmark of how well crime could improve by (ie crime rate from christians to non christians) I could better rate this, but without this it’s more tricky. Worse is that con doesn’t really contest it directly, but sort of by undermining the morality element. Cons rebuttal gives a more concerte harm, which leans me in his direction weighing these two items. The bottom line here is that pros argument for improvements in crime and murder are not concrete and developed enough for me to award the debate on; while I can’t award the debate on the economic harm for the same reason - it at least feels a little more fleshed out. This, together with the lgbtq - which was fleshed out enough to award the debate shifts the needle to con enough for me to be happy awarding points rather than allotting a draw.
As a result: arguments to con.
Con did provide an explanation of why the truth matters in R1, but I didn’t really get the rationale for why Christianity couldn’t provide any benefit if it wasn’t true.
What’s tough here, is that con didn’t provide a clear argument for the harms being false make; but pros response focused more on showing it could be true rather than the negating the potential harm. In these scenarios I tend to err in not awarding the debate on this sort of ambiguity, means I have to side with pro on the element of truth mattering in the absence of a clear rationale for why it’s a negative.
Given this, while I think con makes some great points about the truth of Christianity - the point doesn’t weigh into the resolution. As a result, even if I accept everything con says is true - it wouldn’t necessarily prove the resolution - as such I won’t review the truth of Christianity sections as they aren’t relevant to the burden.
Pro made an almost throwaway comment about the evidence for the resurrection as confirming the truth of Christianity - but this is not fleshed out in any way: so while proof of Christianity would win the debate for pro - he didn’t do nearly enough on this point to accept it on its own merit.
So let’s look at the values.
The values that pro gives - are two fold; that the moral teachings would reduce harm; and that there is a mental health benefit to being religious or christian.
Con didn’t not challenge either of these - which I think he should have, as they are easily challengeable.
The primary harms con raises is treatment and teaching of anti-lgbtq, and the incoherence of moral standards taught. Pro tries to claim this doesn’t matter by citing one form of Christianity where it isn’t an issue - which I am not buying given my thoughts above. Con does very well by citing examples in the Bible that are clearly against lgbtq - this wasn’t really addressed - so I have to accept the harm of lgbtqs as a way in which Christianity produces harms.
The second issue is the incoherent morality - which if followed would cause trillions of dollars of damage (not working on a Sunday was cited here). While both sides argued about whether things are sins or not - in the context of the debate - it’s not about whether something is a sin or not, but whether it does harm. In this case, con points out that some of these are only actually wrong if Christianity is true: but as neither side (other than the financial impact) pointed out either harms or benefits from these incoherent morality, it’s very hard to weight.
Framing.
My Reading of the resolution to me the framing is fairly simple. Pro must show the value of Christianity AND provide justification why, in balance people should convert to it.
Con takes this approach, and my default position is to side with him. Pro offers some caveats to this: while the format does not offer much back and forth; it’s hard to weigh much.
Given how all the points are kinda intermingled and interrelated - I sort of wanted to start off at the beginning.
I think both sides sort of agree that one side has to show Christianity is valuable, and the other that it isn’t. The caveats in the first round by pro seem to try and set up a scenario where negatives can be knocked down on technicalities.
Past actions of Christianity? No specific type of Christianity makes the context of the resolution a bit slippery. I side with con on this side - if Christianity led to harm in the past, this should be used to determine whether there can be harm in the future: that being said, few real examples of past harm were used, making this point a little moot.
The second, about types of Christianity - inside with con too, it seems a little bit of a dodge where con can state things the Bible teaches, and if followed are bad; and pro can say “well not everyone believes that”, unless one can show what is or isn’t Christianity I think con and pro should be working on balance. Con shouldn’t invoke some special sect, as reasons Christianity has little value, pro can’t invoke progressive sects as reasons why issues specific of Christianity aren’t issues. This kind of only relates to one or two points con makes.
The biggest point of contention is that of truth. If Christianity was true - I would suggest that’s an automatic win by pro - so negating arguments for proof are necessary. That being said, if the harm from it being untrue is outweighed by the benefit of it being followed - it doesn’t have to be true to have value. So in this respect I side with pro.
I will say that pro has dedicated a lot of space to talking about whether Christianity is untrue. What I needed him to do was to give me a quantifiable harm from it being untrue that I can weigh against the benefits - but I didn’t get this.
You’re right - there are a couple of places I mixed the two up in the first: but in context it should be clear which side of the argument I am referring to - didn’t spot much in the subsequent two posts.
Explanations: in this section con broadly describes some of the issues with pros description, this goes back and forth a little: but really revolves around the same type of issues I described above. Pros responses are similarly themes as the above; and frankly having established the physical/causal point - con has already met the burden without this
Conclusion: pro makes hay of trying to explain coin tosses, but much of these are restatements of the central arguments above phrased in a different way. Add to this that it was merely a summary of a point that con won, the rebuttal of it didn’t help prove free will, or disprove determinism so I haven’t covered it in detail.
As a result: arguments to con.
Sources: IMO con won this debate with two great uses of sources. Pros sources on MRI was used to establish the core point that decisions are physical and occur prior to conscious awareness - which supports hi position; there was the nature article about being able to view and manipulate consciousness on a physical level - both of these satisfy cons central burden of showing our brains - and even the most abstract part of us - appear to operate under physical rules. This was central to con affirming burden.
Add on to this critically novel studies about psychopaths, and pedophillia induced by head trauma helps to produce a factual underpinning for the brain and our personality being inherently physical contrary to pros position.
Given that the facts cited by con basically won this debate - as opposed to most debates which are kinda part fact part logic - the excellent use of these sources here clearly need to be recognized.
Sources to con.
As always feel free to ask any questions you may have
Con constructive:
Con builds up a decent case, he lays the groundwork with causality - that things occur because they have physical causes.
He lays the groundwork by explaining the brain is physical - the nature source was amazing here: this source helped pro establish the case that even something as abstract as consciousness has a physical background.
These two aspects together show that physical things follow physical laws, the brain is a physical thing; thus follows physical laws - and does a good job of explaining that it is simply the vast complexity of the brain that produces an illusion of indeterminism.
This culminates in the essence of cons argument that free will violates the laws of physics - by inherently violating causality of physics. Pro concedes this point in his reply; which digs a hole for himself, as in conceding this point; it allows con to press him on his burden of proof:
As pro concedes causality/physical laws must be violated for free will - con points out that claim must be supported - that pro must show that humans can create violations of causality. I agree that pro has the burden of proof to show this - and he does not.
Indeed a big part of pros response is to suggest the brain is in someway non physical : but if I match up the responses on either side : pro is claiming that will is not physical, and violates physical laws - but offers no proof: whilst con claims the brain is physical and does not violate physical laws - and offers proof (with the nature article).
On this broad basis - this debate is over at this point - I have a single point of contention for which can swing on single points of proof for which pro has offered none, and con has offered a great source. That clearly shows con has established their position.
Moving onto other points for completeness. Pro does make a series of rebuttals about the laws of physics and causality. Pros points seem caught up on questioning whether the current laws of physics are superlative (will never be disproven) whilst also accepting cons central premise. The issue pro has here is that he appears to concede the universal follows physical laws and is predictable; his argument appear mainly that because the predictable model doesn’t apply to all things that determinism can’t be true; and pins everything to this point
The issue with this, is that the aspect of the laws of physics con is hanging their argument is causality. The existence of predictive rules shows that physical things follow physical laws. In this respect pros objection on the ground of science utterly misses the mark - by suggesting the lack of ability of the standard model implies particles have free will. Even without cons counter that argument appears absurd on its face. Nonetheless con points out the issue with this claim: specifically that the failure of our models of the small to explain gravity does not imply that particles follow gravity.
Further, con points out obtuse it is to suggest that the failure of the standard model to explain gravity means that the brain can break the laws of physics: I agree, this objection appears absurd on its face.
But with this, and pros general objections about how the laws of physics may not be accurate or maybe incomplete do not address the core issue of causality and the brain being physical - indeed it appears in the remaining rounds pro offers mostly assertions that the brain is non physical, or has non physical attributes. Pro has to offer a justification of how the brain can be considered non-physical, or to not follow physical laws in order to win arguments. He does not do that; thus arguments must go to con.
Philosophical arguments are offered by con - suggesting that it is a truism that our behaviour is informed and controlled by past events and our personality. That our behaviour and decisions are derived from this and change as a result, is indicative of causality. Pro backs this up with another excellent source on mris of the brain structure of criminals - indicating decisions and differences can be attribute to physical impacts.
Pros response is a pretty crazy quote mine; suggesting that con not needing to break down all brain functions to functional blocks to show determinism was indicating that determinism didn’t apply. He goes onto link back to the issue with physics that I have covered. His main reply to this broad argument, though, is that some dependence on past events is okay for free will. This sort of makes sense, but does not undermine what con is arguing - that determinism explains these aspects.
So there are a large number of individual points raised here; I haven’t listed each and every one. But have covered the broad themes, the following are threads I didn’t cover:
B theory time. There’s a little back and forth on this: but it doesn’t prove free will, only potentially prove determinism - con already did that so does not need to be addressed.
Pro constructive: Newton.
Pro argues that Newton’s third law supports free will, and contradicts determinism. He describes his concept of free will (a) explicitly defining it as independent of external forces , defines the third law (b) describing how bodies interact with regards to force, defines free will again in (c) as independent of external forces. Pro then seems to just state the third law applies in (d) because actions will be opposed by others. Then goes onto list how there are reactions to choices.
The argument has two issues. Firstly, it’s not clear how the law applies to what pro is describing; pro simply says it does. His description of Newton is about forces, his description of will is about reactions to choices. Con points this out that con fails to describe a link between the two - which pro doesn’t really address (other than to talk about intelligence, not about the invisible link to sliding scales of reactions). I side with con on this; they don’t appear linked, and other than some similar terminology, con does not give me any reason to believe that both reactions to individuals and Newton’s third law is talking about the same thing.
Even were this not to be an issue, the main problem I have with pros argument here is the resolution: that there is no implicit explanation of why the choices leading to the reactions he’s talking about are free. If I accept that making choices agrees with Newton’s 3rd law, nothing about that means the choice is inherently free. Pros argument here just seems nebulous and muddled at best; it leaps right into its conclusion with first establishing a particular thesis.
Pro argues that mris shows free choice. Reading this, pros own argument appears self refuting - that decisions are formed outside of conscious understanding. Pro goes onto make a set of claims that he doesn’t seem support; saying that coming to conclusions is not possible with determinism. There appears no reasoning presented here, simply pro telling me - effectively - that coming to choices is not possible in determinism.
Con neatly outlines this; con specifies what determinism is, that choices are possible, and brains can make decisions - it’s just those decisions are governed by physical rules - not our free choices. Con also points out that pros own source justifies free will - I agree - and this flip of a source is absolutely devastating to pros position.
Pro doesn’t seem to contest any of this in his reply; he primarily tells me that decision making is non physical. In response.
Given that again, cons point is nebulous at best; and appears more to simply be concluding free will exists without a justification, and telling me all the things that can’t happen if determinism is true without offering a good justification of why - cons rebuttal here stands and I have to reject this one too.
For the third point, pro offers the idea that courage and backlash against oppression is evidence of free will; or at least that free will is the best explanation. While there are a lot of sub points here, they seem to boil down to the same issues above. Nothing about this argument gives me a) an argument about why x is more likely if free will exists vs determinism or b.). That free will better explains a given event than determinism.
Con gives a basic summary outlining this objection; though I would have liked to have seen him present a more robust challenge. I think con should have spent less time on the specifics of pros claims here, and condensed a response that highlighted that pro was assuming his own conclusion and misrepresenting determinism a little - there was some of this, but not enough for me to fully reject pros constructive (only to consider it incredibly weak)
RationalMadman 09.14.21 10:23PM Forfeited
Nyxified 09.21.21 10:23PM Forfeited
Nyxified 10.05.21 05:42PM Forfeited
RationalMadman 10.12.21 05:42PM Forfeited
This is a case of the Croissant calling the palmier flakey.
However note below “Con mostly shot himself in the foot, as in the penultimate round, he could well have defended the claims, or refuted pros objections - but really just restated his case. As a result; this debate was really two rounds of pro vs one of con - which is very hard to come back from.”
That without aesthetic beauty, one could not love ones parents or friends as much. This is paraphrasing a little, but the primary gist. I don’t feel con actively justifies why he thinks this is true, making this a bit of a stretch. As con goes on, he seems to undermine his position by attributing the love to non-aesthetic beauty; and then sort of trying to tenuously link the two back together by stating one has an impact on the other, such that what starts out as a stretch, but a valid point ends up getting less valid and more muddled. This is perhaps linked in with the definitions that con put forward perhaps - that con was trying to argue that anything that gives pleasure counts as aesthetic beauty; it’s not entirely clear as con does not explicitly link everything together - but as the definitions went pros way, trying to figure out how it applies to cons definition isn’t necessary.
I think pro does well enough simply separating the love for a parent vs what they visually look like; typing back to the non-aesthetic aspect, and helps nullify cons point; regardless of whether this is linked to the definitions or not
The next thrust con makes; though is never fully fleshed out into an argument revolves around dullness and lack of pleasure if there was no aesthetic beauty. Pro counters here saying that the lack of aesthetic beauty doesn’t require a lack of appreciation or lack of enjoyment; that seems inherently valid on its face: this really boils down to which definition we take; as we have taken pros definitions, there is nothing about absence of aesthetic beauty that would prevent things being enjoyable, so it would appear pro does enough on this point.
The final aspect where con attempts to justify their position is better; is the attempt to point out that without suffering there can be no pleasure. This is a pretty valid (albeit a little labored) point; I think this was the better of cons argument - but was justified over perhaps two lines; with the remainder being linked back to the dullness argument I just referred to.
To me it’s not fully clear whether this is a new argument; or the same argument sort of justified a different way. As a new argument, pro points out that the pleasure of one person doesn’t justify the suffering of another, it seems to have at minimum rebuttal. Given this, and given that pros rebuttal was not challenged; it doesn’t meet cons burden.
Note: as with pro, there was a lot of description and text that fed into remarkably few individual points, I’ve omitted much of the specific detail from cons first reply as the bulk of it appears mostly reiterating the same point, with the bulk of the definition simply leading to the conclusion that aesthetic beauty covers a broader set of things. Likewise the majority of the remainder is talking about ugliness, aesthetic beauty, suffering, etc - with a whole ton of words being used to effectively justify pros position. The remainder really boils down to the three points above. I did not feel it necessary to talk explicitly about each one of the examples con gives, as they all fit into those limited sets of arguments.
In this respect - all that being said: pro gives me a reason why aesthetic beauty causes clear harms. Con provides reason why aesthetic beauty is necessary, but this appears based on overly broad definitions that pro countered and was not defended. The remaining case con made primarily had the effect of bolstering pros position ; with the remainder neatly disposed of in pros reply.
Con mostly shot himself in the foot, as in the penultimate round, he could well have defended the claims, or refuted pros objections - but really just restated his case. As a result; this debate was really two rounds of pro vs one of con - which is very hard to come back from.
Because of this: arguments to pro.
All other points tied.
Reading the resolution and the description; the debate itself seems a fairly interpreting proposition. Pro must show me that the net benefits of a world in which AB does not exists exceed the net harms - and vice versa.
Pros central argument, is fairly simple: that there is a great of suffering caused by holding up aesthetic beauty ideals - emotional, social etc; even economic harm by people spending money living up to a standard of beauty. Anorexia, discrimination, etc.
This central plank from pro, seem pretty reasonable as a starting point; and if there were no other argument, it’s sufficient to meet the burden. Pro shows the principle of aesthetic beauty is harmful.
Note: there was a lot of thought out into explanation and justification - which I felt added a fair amount of clarity - but all boils down to the very narrow points. As I think the main point is we’ll covered, I didn’t go into all the detail on each sub point.
Con starts off challenging the definitions a little. Nothing about the definition seemed inherently unreasonable. Though it does appear that he’s trying to cast a very broad net on the definition to include anything that gives pleasure. I think pros response to limit “beauty” to physical aesthetics only (ie: physical aspects of something that are considered beautiful). Pro goes to great length to justify the original definitions by separating beauty as a physical attribute vs beauty as a description of an experience. As this clarification seems reasonable - and was unchallenged by con, I have to go with pros definitions.
Con then starts by largely agreeing with pro - that aesthetic beauty causes harm and hardship - in fact, the vast majority of cons first round is basically spelling out pros case: there’s no need to spend so much time on it - and it times it felt pretty gratuitous for no appreciable reason. One of the main thrusts con makes is that those that are beautiful suffer also due to their beauty - but as Pro points out, in the next round, this actually bolsters pros position.
There were a few other places where con appears to try and justify their burden:
‘‘Twas kinda mumbly.
Dude, I’m white, in my 40s, and my iPhone is full of weird al.
I actually quite like this topic; would you mind if I stole it?
Bones is probably more justified in suggesting that I has ignored his argument as I didn’t really talk about his rebuttal of P1: which would also likely have won him the debate IMO; I didn’t cover it as on its own for P2 doubt added, pro has established his burden for debate; and con did not
I have had the objections shared: while I won’t quote the PM; I would prefer to make the response public.
I explained why I thought both of the arguments were kritiks - one because it challenged whether things could be proven which is an implicit assumption of the resolution ; the second I pointed out challenges the definition uses in the resolution itself. I didn’t do this in conduct, but in the arguments section, so I think I explained why I felt these were kritiks. 949 left several key rebuttals until the last round on several key points : for which pro points out would consist of a last round blitzkrieg: and argued that it amount to poor conduct if you did it. The point of this is that 949 withheld key rebuttals to dropped arguments until the last round - not the generalized back and forth of stuff you had already been talking about since the start; and thus offered their first rebuttal to these points in a way that their opponent could not respond. The first kritik I spotted and pro didn’t - I would not have awarded conduct on this. The second kritik was not substantial, and on its own I wouldn’t have awarded conduct, the final round rebuttal I would have shrugged off had pro not justified why it deserves a conduct ding; if it were just that; I would have held off - but the last round rebuttals and the first kritik was enough to push me over.
With the second: I dont always reference all the individual points and give more words to explain why arguments didn’t work than the debater did making it - typically if i I find a swathe of arguments irrelevant to the resolution, I’ll talk about it broadly, but may not talk about every specific argument.
The rebuttal to the video to support God is irrelevant to the resolution - as even if I accept it as true, it doesn’t affirm the resolution; and secondly it forms a new affirmative argument that I am unable to consider because it’s the final round; so I kinda considered it as part of the blizkrieg. This is what I meant by “tangling in the weeds of irrelevance”
The issue I had with cons arguments about past present and future; is that he conceded a theory of time was false; he has to explain why, if this theory is false, that the universe could still have begun to exist consistently with the kalam. The only place they really tries to do that, was with their argument about string theory - which as I explained was kinda explained by pro. That’s kinda why I listed that as the main part of the argument - as it’s the only point that could affirm the resolution. I thought about writing a sentence about this, but I felt it was part of the geneal theme I highlighted in pros constructive section about forgetting what they’re arguing for/irrelvance.
To clarify specifically - the a/b theory put forward by pro and as argued is critical to Kalam P2 not because there is no past/present/future - but that kalam (and a-theory) requires that there is only present exists; and the universe is progressing through a series of presents - Tensed time. B theory treats time as a dimension; while we may observe the universe travelling through presents - all points are as real as any other - so as people argued, you can’t really say it begins to exist in any meaningful sense Arguing the past present or future do really exist, are orthogonal to that point; and without being tied into a thesis about how one may conclude the universe began to exist in the b theory - the point doesn’t really matter IMO - con was arguing on more of a side track that doesn’t appear clearly linked to the resolution.
If con hadn’t conceded a theory was false, or had spent any time explaining explaining how premise 2 was valid despite a theory being false, I may have talked about this in more detail: which is mostly what I was talking about in the section where I explained you were not really affirming your burden in paragraph 3/4/5 in post 13.
The vote could have been in error; I am human and make mistakes, and I may have missed something - I don’t think I have, but I’m always willing to take another look - if you think there was a problem with it, please feel free to tell me; I’m sort of intrigued as to what specifically people thought was wronf
Please bear in mind that when I’m reviewing a debate; I’m reading it about 27 times, I skip back and forward in individual points - and when I get to the end, I try and double check my key points I missed, and check explicitly for stuff that I say was needed but not present, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
I actually recall getting to the end after not finding an affirmative for con; and finding his reference to where he claimed he had: going back and realizing it’s stuff that I already dealt with.
As a first step. I will review an argument, figure out what it’s saying, then work out whether - if I accepted it - whether it would prove the resolution. If it doesn’t, I won’t spend time critiquing the finer back and forth on it - that’s what happened in this one. Half of the arguments weren’t clear, or didn’t affirm the resolution.
This doesn’t mean I didn’t miss anything, so by all means if you think I left anything out - I’m only human - I’m happy to reassess if you let me know.
Con argues he has proven his case within his rebuttals, and i will cover them here:
Abortion is legal and accepted by society. If con had given evidence or argument that this was accepted by society - it would have led to a win. He did not. If he had argued that legality was a moral standard - I would award the sun. He did not.
The closest con came was suggesting that morality is arbitrary - and as a result society can make whatever rules they want.
A fetus cannot have moral value
In his rebuttals con hinges his main points on the idea that a fetus has a different moral value - based on its moral agency, mental capacity and personality. It is indistinguishable in properties from other animals; the chicken killing example was really, really great - we accept that its fine to kill other creatures that don’t have moral agency. This is rounded off by cons argument that abortion is justified to save impacts on the woman. The coup de gras was pointing out that the justification pro uses to kill rapists could arguably used to justify abortion as moral.
The area that is holding me back - is that it’s hard for me to disentangle cons justification for why killing a child is not moral, but killing a fetus is. It’s touched upon throughout, but never concisely explained until the final round. Pro does himself no favours here either; the argument boils down to the choice being arbitrary (which it appears to be the case with his position too). Con does cover some aspects in his final defence.
If I were to compare how many things the different systems seem to explain, cons explains animals vs humans; self defence, etc; pros doesn’t fully explain either satisfactorily. So cons seems like the better standard to determine the morality of killing. I keep coming back to the self defence issue, using killing a rapist to justify abortion. Pointing that out, IMO was so devastating that it makes up for the poorer elaborating in other areas.
With that all being said; cons affirmative case is too sparse, and too limited for me to award the win; while I came within a hairs breadth of doing so - there’s just not enough argument affirming the position for me to justify cons BoP is met. Most of cons burden is murky - albeit less so than for pro - meaning that I would be awarding this based on a single paragraph of the entire debate that pro wasn’t able to defend.
As neither side met their BoP - I think this one is a tie.
Arguments tied.
Conduct: con spent a lot of the debate calling pro a liar, or a hypocrite - that’s not cool at all; this is a debate. I’m not going to award conduct here, but wanted to point it out. Treat the other person with respect, and as if they’re arguing in good faith.
Scientific testimony.
Pro offers a syllogism. That abortion is murder; while he doesn’t explicitly justify why murder is immoral (again no standard), I think its reasonable. Pro goes on to clarify (after contest by con) that murder is the concept of unjustified killing. As before, pro goes from something that seems reasonable, to something that seems specifically ad hoc. Without pro making an attempt to explain what the standard to use to determine whether a murder is “justified” or not - I find it hard to accept this argument.
Con provides a great definition as to why it can be considered justified - by arguing that pregnancy is harmful - pro doesn’t really respond to this other than to say that desire is trumped by kids. In the final round, con points out the beautiful contradiction between killing in self defence being okay, and also claim for that desire does not trump life. This was particularly well spotted and well presented.
This effectively builds up a strong case that pros moral statements - which started our sounding definitive appear arbitrary and ad hoc when examined - are invalid.
Uncertainty.
This argument is odd. It argues that if one is uncertain about whether the fetus is not a person, abortion is unjustified. I think that’s perfectly logical - but fits outside the resolution. If I accept it without reservation - it doesn’t add to pros burden. If con argues that the fetus is not a person, for him to meet his burden; he must meet his burden of proof to show it, if he does - then it would kinda affirm the resolution and this forth argument. That is to say that I feel this argument is largely redundant.
As a result of these; I don’t think pro has met his burden, but the question remains whether con has met theirs, as is clearly stipulated by the rules.
Con implies that if something is not on balance immoral (his opponents burden), it’s on balance modal (his burden), as it is no amoral.
I don’t buy this for a second, as the default position in this appears to be that abortion is on balance neither moral or immoral - a grey area.
Moral framework
Neither side presents a framework to allow me to judge whether things are moral or immoral. Both rely appealing to my (as a voter) moral intuition - that’s really, really bad for both sides, as it makes me have to decide what is moral at some level, rather than having you as debaters show me.
Inconsequential difference.
Pro argues that killing a toddler is immoral, and as there is no consequential difference between the two, it’s immoral to kill fetuses too.
Without a moral framework this is hard to assess; and this is made harder when pro also suggests the two are not completely morally equivalent in R2. Con nails pro to the wall with this. suggesting that if these things are inconsequential why is there a moral difference: con ha also pointed out that chimpanzee zygotes would be considered morally different even due to their similarity. Both of these critical rebuttals were ignored by pro.
Accepting as true Pros argument that life begins at conception and is the only point at which a consequential difference exists - cons unchallenged rebuttals does enough to undermine pros conclusion - if they don’t have the same moral value in other ways: why this one?
While this doesn’t prove cons position - it does make pros argument appear arbitrary; and in the absence of a moral framework by which to judge things - I have to reject this one.
Note1: this wound was entirely self inflicted by pro - he could have stood his ground and argued they are both morally equivalent with little issue IMO, and I would have probably accepted it.
Note2: pro didn’t establish a moral standard, nor a standard for discussing what is “consequential” was or not. It was all implied, and while con picked up on the first, he didn’t explicitly pick up on the second.
What’s the definition of “perfectly”?
In addition: by “replicate”: do you mean simulate/emulate (it could be taken to mean replicate as in to create a copy of - like 3d printing)
What pro has done; is demonstrate that unless A-theory is true, the KCA is false; con agrees A-theory is false, and doesn’t really challenge pros key point, that KCA described “causes” are predicated on A theory. To me, at this point the debate is over.
What I think con tries to do, is try and explain how the KCA could still be true with some other theory of time. Con ambled through a description of string theory: but pro correctly points out that this matches the B theory of time too.
At this point I think con lost track of what they were trying to argue. There was a lot of back and forth on scripture, and talking about what a possible explantation would look like.
Distilling all this down: the way I view this resolution, is that to win, con needs to show that both the premises are true, and the conclusion of God follows. For Pro - he needs to invalidate one or more of the premises and/or show the conclusion doesn’t follow.
Con didn’t meet his burden, he neither showed the conclusion followed, nor that the premises were true - reviewing where the passages he claimed he showed the premises were true, it seems to show nothing of the sort.
Pro doesn’t do the best job; R1 has a great take down using A-theory, which was never really challenged and sort of forgotten about; followed by tangling in the weeds of irrelevance. But what pro does do, is provide significant doubt of the veracity of P1, in round 1, and keeps dragging con back to it. In this respect: pro must get the arguments, though based on points rather than K/O.
As a result - arguments to pro.
Conduct: Con makes two kritiks and a last round blitzkrieg. I was borderline for conduct as pro didn’t mention one Kritik, and both were inherently irrelevant. But after pro specified for con not to make a last round rebuttal - only for con to make a last rebuttal pushes it over the edge for me; pro convinced me that the last round rebuttal was unfair, and the two rule violations with a stipulated penalty of conduct violation makes it clear a conduct mark down is warranted.
Conduct to pro.
Even if accept it this without challenge, the argument torpedoes both sides of the debate and doesn’t meet cons burden. There was a laboured argument that if pro cannot disprove it, then con is affirmed, but it’s not clear at all how this is the case.
In addition, this appears a straight up Kritik - though pro doesn’t point this out. The argument appears to challenge an assumption inherent in the resolution.
(4) Newton: Con made an argument concerning Newton and the KCA - if I accept all of this as-is, it still isn’t clear how this supports the resolution, and so can be rejected. At best con is arguing that all things must have a notional cause - however pro counters with QT, indicating that not everything has a notional cause; this was ignored by con in the final round.
(5) god within nature.
Again, even if I accept that flawed definitions of supernatural precludes a “within nature” deity - that doesn’t appear to show the KCA proves or does not prove such a deity exists. So as before, I’m left stumped as to why con thinks this supports his case. At best it challenges the definition in the resolution - which con accepted - but that renders this a second kritik as pro points out. Con attempts to defend the kritik by pointing out something about the sentence making no sense in its own - it is unclear what con meant here.
Pro constructive.
Special relativity and retrocausality. Con drops these arguments until the last round, and as they were dropped until pro could no longer respond, I’m going to ignore their rebuttal. As a result this means I have to assume that the A theory of Time is invalid. This appears to be a position conceded by con too. Saying this I feel This was weakly explained by pro.
Pro neatly ties the KCA to causality, that linear time with team is necessary for things to “begin”, and that a tenseless B theory time would invalidate the inherent premises.
Cons response was to point out that old theories are often superseded (pro countered that the KCA is older - genius rebuttal btw!)
S&G
I’m not going to award this; but I came close, cons formatting and style made its incredibly difficult to follow the arguments they were making, I could probably have justified a ding here as a result, but I’ll chalk it down to style for now.
General:
To me, both pro and con sort of missed the fundamental issue with the KCA - which is that the KCA proves that the universe has a cause, but nothing about it necessitates that the cause is a supernatural deity. Pro touches upon this slightly in R3, but doesn’t give it any real ink.
Con doesn’t cover this AT ALL. For me, without con explaining how the universe having a cause proves God, he cannot meet his burden. Everything else is just dancing around a syllogism that doesn’t show what Con thinks. The only reason I have not just called this here, is that pro seems to implicitly argue as if should the KCA be valid, it proves God.
Everything con said could have been undermines had pros entire R1 been:
“If The KCA is valid, and the universe has a cause, there is no necessary reason why that cause must be a supernatural deity”
I’m not swaying my vote on this; but just pointing a big chasm that probably should have been argued but wasn’t.
Con constructive.
I’m going to start here, as when reading the arguments it was complete unclear what the constructive argument con was making. Con must offer a reason to me as to why the KCA proves God. A lot of that argument was implied but not written down.
In R1 (3) con makes an argument about “proof” and science: I am not going to lie - after multiple reads I am not confident I fully understand what con was trying to argue, it seems that the argument appears to simply muddy the waters about can be proven or not.
I would be happy to make another debate: feel free to challenge me, I would like to propose a couple of changes if you were redoing it.
If you could make it 4 rounds, to allow a rejoinder/conclusion (always off putting not being able to offer objections to a rebuttal), and if you’re willing, going up to 7500 words; still not lots, but means that I don’t have to bitly all my links, or shorten bottled water to BW to make the limit :)
5 hours writing argument.
3 days trying to trim down from 10,000 words.
IE: to waive on Sunday so I don’t have to write arguments over the weekend? :D
Are you willing to wait until Sunday to post the first round?
Are you talking about water in any form of bottles or specifically mass produced plastic consumer bottled water?
What I did in rebuttal 1, is use a similar approach to the Drake equation; assigning odds to the events and scenarios you listed, then starting with your 6.4m intelligent life forms, wiggling these planets down to how many of them we should have observed. The number at the end of each sentence is the number of planets that have evolved intelligent life that pass the filter you added; even with tiny numbers; there would be a enough close by species that could potentially have either made contact or have been observed.
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>Reported Vote:DynamicSquid // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to cross
>Reason for Decision:
Crossed, well done! You have clear and concise points, and they were well organized. Keep it up! As for you Dynasty, I've brought some advice:
a) Don't waste your time arguing with your opponents sources, argue with his contentions directly
b) Next time, please at least try...
Reason for Mod Action> This vote fails to explain sources, conduct or spelling and grammar criteria and is thus insufficient.
For the arguments portion, as a voter you must survey the main arguments and counter arguments both sides make and provide a rational of why one was better than another in order to reach a decision. This point is thus insufficient too.
While the voting criteria may seem a bit harsh; the purpose is to allow debaters to have a better understanding of why one side one won over another and to allow; as well as to dissuade grudge voters and those that vote with their bias. This is not to say your view of who won is incorrect, or to accuse your of grudge voting; however in the interests of transparency we often need to see information about how this vote was arrived at for it to count. There is more information on the detailed voting policy covered in the CoC.
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Done
Hi christen, you can edit your vote for a short period after voting; I can remove it for you to let you repost if you no longer have the delete icon on the vote.
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>Reported Vote: 855h01E // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to pro
>Reason for Decision:
supa dudz completley destroyed his opponent
Reason for Mod Action> This vote is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
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Hi Jeff, while I sound super formal - it’s an easy mistake ; and an issue we haven’t been able to fully resolve yet, so don’t worry.
Please be aware that there are also rules surrounding voting, and what qualifies as valid. You can take a look here for when you’ve met the voting criteria: https://www.debateart.com/rules
I humbly submit my vote.
Which participant provided more convincing arguments?
-It appears that neither side agreed to the other side's definition of "Good." Pro started out with a definition, but Con proposed a different definition, but neither confirmed the others. The BoP appears to be on Pro, but without an agreed-upon definition for "Good" I, as a voter, am left to wonder which definition to use for judging.
-I thought Pro had some good Round 1 arguments. Con's Round 2 arguments were equally as good but did neglect to rebut Pro's first-round arguments.
-Con FF the final round.
-Based on Con's Round 4 FF and their lack of rebuttal in Round 2, Pro wins this criterion.
Which participant provided the most reliable sources?
- Both sides provided sources.
- One of Pro's sources was invalid. Con calls them on it. Pro did not respond with a better source for said point.
- Con wins this criterion.
Which participant had better spelling and grammar?
- Both sides made spelling errors, but one side did worse than the other on spelling and grammar.
- Pro's spelling and grammar errors are bad enough to flip the switch to Con's favor.
- In the interest of brevity, I will state only a few errors out of many that Pro made (One from each Round)...
---Round 1 - [A1} P2. "Summits have been never successful...." should have been, "Summits have never been successful..."
---Round 2 - Demographics 2) P1. "...white people and what there belief is. Liberal started there whole movement..." -- "There" should have been "Their"
---Round 3 - Concluding Statement P2 "I did not use much sources in these arguments,..." "Much" should be "Many"
- Con wins this criterion.
Which participant had better conduct?
- In Round 4, Pro should have waived, but instead used the Round 4 argument section to make disparaging remarks against Con, "My opponent forfeited his concluding statements. Boohoo:("
- Con wins this Criterion.
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>Reported Vote: Sigmaphil// Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to pro for arguments 4 points to con for all other categories
>Reason for Decision: see above.
Reason for Mod Action> S&G is borderline (what makes it borderline is that the voter doesn’t explain what makes the errors excessive - however this is implicit in the vote). Conduct is borderline (you have to compare behaviours, and as one side forfeited and the other was rude - according to the vote, I could have viewed this as insufficient too - but given the nature of the conduct mentioned I need to give the benefit of the doubt)
Sources are insufficient: the key point in sources is that you must compare the specific impact of the sources on the debate, using an example to show how the argument is bolstered or harmed by the source.
Arguments are also insufficient. As a voter you have to show you have gone through the main arguments and counter arguments from both sides, and weigh them all to reach a decision: the voter doesn’t do this.
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>Reported Vote: Jeff_Goldblum// Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to con.
>Reason for Decision: Con's arguments were more fleshed out and better structured. In the end, Pro forfeited.
Reason for Mod Action> This vote is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
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The typical creationist argument is that scientists haven’t provided a detailed, end to end, evidence based explanation of the origin of life; AND have not successfully reproduced life using this abiotic process in the lab - so we must accept an asserted explanation that God did it, with no explanation, no evidence and no predictive ability.
It’s intellectual dishonesty at its worst.
Let’s turn this on its head then.
Assume you have a production line - what if it produces is other production lines? Older production lines shut down, and the child production lines produce their own production lines.
What if the production line doesn’t produce an exact copy of itself, but can create an inexact duplicate?
What if these production lines shut down if they can’t find access to materials, or are killed by other production lines?
What if a difference created by inexact copying allowed the production line to be more efficient? Or help extract raw materials from the environment better than competitors.
What if one of the changes the production line made, was to modify the colour of the production lines it produces?
No it doesn’t. What aspect of this is hard for you to understand?
Cells and production lines work in completely dissimilar ways - as I explained in the post below which you ignored. The only similarity is that cells and production lines take inputs and transform them into outputs via a sequence of steps.
Thats the only similarity - and it’s a similarity also shared with many things that aren’t designed, so having that property is not sufficient to claim cells are designed.
Pointing out that the cell works completely and fundamentally differently from a production line at every level, and that the aspects of a production line that are unique to designed things do not apply to cells, and that the only things cells have in common with production lines, it also has in common with fire and flood deposition - very much demonstrate the way you are comparing cells and production lines is fundamentally false, and you cannot use the analogy to infer design - due to all the major differences.
As I keep saying you’re trying to manufacture intent in cells, not by demonstrating cells have key features that demonstrably require a designer - but using loaded analogy, terminology and language to insert your creator where it does not actually exist.
Ribosomes aren’t “made by something” and do don't “make” anything and nothing is “constructed” - a chemical reaction occurs that converts amino acids into chains. Just Chemical reactions.
The “intelligence” you are arguing in the process comes solely from you using human words that imply design. Unfortunately, the words you use to describe something cant change what that something is.
No matter how much you refer to a cell as a production line, no matter how often you use loaded words that imply intent like “made” and “create”, the nature of what a cell is won’t change; it is now and will remain a set of sequential chemical reactions unique only due to the size of the chemicals involved and the result they produce.
What happens in a cell, is that there are a series of chemical reactions that use enzymes to break down incoming material and then uses another enzyme to reassemble it into long chains, the chemical order of those changes depends on the chemical structure of another chemical.
This is almost identical to how fire works - the only difference is that in a cell there are more steps, and the molecules involved have more atoms in them.
The problem isn’t that we don’t understand - it’s that your explanation and logic is really bad
While it’s nice you unilaterally assert, with no attempt at argument, that a basic sequential process is all that is required for something to be designed - that’s patently untrue.
As I said, combustion, breaks down individual raw materials, then in a sequence of steps reassembles the molecules into a lower energy state - fire is a production line.
The process of a river meandering, flooding and manufacturing an ox bow lake - again a sequence of assembly steps.
These process are clearly not intelligently driven, yet match the process criteria of a production line.
The sequence of steps is not indicative of intelligence, as there is nothing about such sequences that are inherently impossible without intelligent intervention.
A production line on the other hand, which is physical assembly with external acting objects or individuals that are driven from a completely separate mechanism that is separate and distinct from the thing being created - and fundamental re-ordering at the macroscopic level using process and mechanisms that fall outside those that can occur without direction.
You keep ignoring the fact that the aspects that make us aware things are created intelligently are not shared by life.
But it’s not the same. They are not at all the same other than trivial similarities of process - like you said.
That’s the only thing they really have in common - both have a sequence of steps that are are followed in some sequence from which something else comes out that is bigger than any of the individual parts.
That’s what is similar between a production line and a cell - and when you express it like that, it doesn’t seem at all indicative of intelligence. It’s only when you deliberately push human words, and human concepts onto the cell (which doesn’t have them), does it sound like it.
That’s the problem you have - you talk about life using human terminology of designed things - and rely on these tenuous comparisons to inject the design part. In reality the aspects of designed things that lets us know they are designed are not shared by life - but that’s hard to separate when you use these analogies.
I completely understand what you’re saying, it’s just incorrect for the reasons I keep explaining and you keep ignoring.
Fire - and any chemical reaction - follows the same “process”. Flood deposition and erosion follows the same “process”
The “process” of a production line is simply just set of successive steps that change a set up of input materials into a given output.
When you make fatuous comparisons, you bring in and imply properties and attributes that we know where designed - but aren’t shared. When you strip away all the differences and actually list what’s really common between a production line and a cell - you’re left with something so superficial it’s clearly not indicative of intelligence.
I completely understand what you’re saying.
Unfortunately, your problem is that you are under the false impression that the tenuous and superficial similarities of two things highlighted by analogies used to paraphrase what happens - is equal to deep and low level identity between two things.
It seems you continue to flat out ignore this critical and fundamental issue with your argument.
No amount of trivial and superficial similarity between a production line and cell chemistry will change that a cell is completely and fundamentally different at every level from a production line.
The fatuous equivalence is the problem you have.