Instigator / Pro
21
1377
rating
62
debates
25.81%
won
Topic
#1362

The colors God chose to design animals with were made with intelligent choices

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
6
Better sources
8
8
Better legibility
3
4
Better conduct
4
4

After 4 votes and with 1 point ahead, the winner is...

TheRealNihilist
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
22
1650
rating
44
debates
77.27%
won
Description

I'm going to use google docs because pictures are worth 1000 words.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Pros argument boils down to animals having different colours that are suitable for the environment they live in - therefore God.

Con argues that this is due to evolution. In the first round, con points out that if animals fail due their colour - they die. This is a very basic description, and I would have liked to do more.

Con also address, tersely, a key issue with pros argument: that con can point out the painter making the painting, but pro is unable to show God. He points out that pro cannot produce evidence of God actually colouring weasels.

Out of these two, pros argument appears to be unwarranted non-sequitur: pro doesn’t, in my view, provide any reason as to why God is the only explanation - the core of the argument appears mostly asserted.

Pro doesn’t offer any additional arguments - and simply repeats this over and over.

Pro does make an argument relating to evolutionary fraud, con bats this away by explaining that one “fraud” doesn’t necessitate that all of evolution is flawed.

Trimming away all the fat of this debate - it appears that pros argument is mainly asserting that animals are particular colours - then asserting God did it. Cons main argument was to produce a very basic counter explanation which is more causal - and pointing out that pro is mostly asserting his position.

I feel con may have made this easier by hammering home a basic step by step evolutionary explantation the core content of cons rebuttal pointed out the vacuous nature of pros argument and wasn’t significantly harmed by pros only counter. As con offered a necessary explanation whilst pro does not - cons case wins out.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Resolution: BOP on Pro. Con makes no constructive, so Con has to disprove all of Pro's points.

1. Weasels/Natural Camo:
Pro opens up talking about weasels and their natural camouflage, then says that this translates to intelligent design since the colors match their environments (akin to Nintendo designing Pikachu.) I did not find this point convincing as there was no proper evidence given that camouflage could not originate from a source other than intelligent design.
Con responds to Pro's first point through a comparison that fell pretty flat. However, it does an adequate job of demonstrating the lack of logical causation present in Pro's point. Regarding Pro's Pikachu comparison, Con shows that while we know the origin of Pikachu, we can not know the same for animals. Both of these responses are fair points, however regarding Pro's argument as a whole Con would have been much better off simply showing how evolution can produce camouflage through natural selection. Pro's defenses for this point are not convincing and add nothing to the conversation. I must give this point to Con.

2. Servals/Tigers/Proportionate Markings
This point was much closer. Pro's point was that natural selection does not operate based on aesthetics, so the probability of perfectly proportionate animal markings seems low. Yet, I wish Pro had offered more of a reason as to WHY aesthetics is not necessarily evolutionarily beneficial for an animal, and presented this point in a way that it was less confusing for Con. Con's only real response to this point is that since evolution is true, while the probability of proportional animal markings seems low, it must have happened anyways. This would be a sufficient response for me to flip this point in favor of Con, but the problem is that Con really fails to prove the premise that evolution is true. A link to a Wikipedia page on fossils is not an explanation as to why evolution is true, and Pro's original point is already evidence to counter Con on this one. Aside from Pro's original point, however, Pro mishandled the response to Con's fossil argument in my view. Still, even though Con was extremely close to defeating this point, it wasn't quite enough. Pro wins this one.

Conclusion:
This debate boils down to one point in favor of Pro. While Pro's first point was not convincing, Pro's second one was. Con defeated Pro's first point but Con could not sufficiently defeat Pro's second point. Since the burden of proof was on Pro, and Con made no constructive, Con was required to defeat all of Pro's points to win since he had no offense. Since he could not manage to do that, I must give the arguments to Pro but spelling and grammar to Con since Pro's points were fairly confusing to read through. After reading through, I hope both parties can see my reasoning. If not, feel free to message me and I will elaborate more.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Interpreting the resolution:
Two-part resolution; first that God designed animals, second that the coloring was intelligent.

Gist:
Pro makes an argument by assertion, con asks for actual evidence.
Had pro not repeated the same basic things, but instead sought to provide the evidence requested, I would give this debate to him. As is, con wins on grounds of BoP (pro showed that these colors would make sense if intelligently done, but never sought to provide verification of that, or worse verification that God did it as the resolution mandates).

1. Weasels are white
Comparing them to snow was a decent opening
Countered with evidence that this was non-sequitur due to the same logic could equally be used against God (if I understand correct, someone might more easily get away with a crime due to the right hair color?); which admittedly fell flat, but it was against a non-convincing point anyway.

2. Pikachu is yellow
Made that way by artistic choice.
Countered with it being confirmed as an artistic choice, unlike the things God is supposed to have colored.
Back and forth of the same thing.

3. Cat ears and stripes and spots
I think pro was saying Jesus is visible in the ears of cats? He said cat ears somehow prove Jesus, whom had zero to do with this debate.
Con lightly mocked this off topic Jesus talk, then pulled the debate back to the topic by asking for proof it was from God. He then went on to ask for video evidence of God shaping and coloring the ears, as we can do for t-shirts (pro compared glorious cat ears to shirts). Plus a short explanation that these traits are passed down genetically, thus unlikely to be painted on by God each time.
(a picture of a tortoiseshell cat would have won this... actually it would have won the whole debate... even pointing out that the pictures of cats had asymmetrical patterns could have done that)

4. Lack of argument
Con counters that an argument for creation has not been established to then weight if the choices were truly intelligent or not, when compared against the competing theory that they developed such variety by chance and natural selection (which tends to be very intelligent, but this did not come up).

---

Arguments:
See above review of key points. No argument in favor of God being the one to do the coloring was offered, thus even if we buy that the colors were painted on, we have nothing to suggest that God did it. Pro is making the affirmative claim, and a huge one at that, to which he needs to offer evidence to raise above the null hypothesis.

Conduct:
I was never distracted from the debate by violations, so this is firmly within the tied range.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Which participant provided the most reliable sources?
-Both provided sources during their arguments.
-Tie.

Which participant had better spelling and grammar?
-I saw no egregious violation of spelling or grammar.
-Tie.

Which participant had better conduct?
-Both sides conducted the debate with good conduct.
Tie.

Which participant provided more convincing arguments?
- There were no term definitions or debate framework provided by either side. For example terms like God, Intelligence, design, animals, etc.
- Since the resolution is "The colors God chose to design animals with were made with intelligent choices" and no defined terms or framework were introduced I was making the assumption that both sides believed in God and therefore the argument for proving God exists is not pertinent to the burden of proof.
- The burden of proof is on Pro. So what is the burden of proof? To show that God made intelligent choices in designing animals, specifically their color.
- Since both sides assume the existence of God and God by definition is intelligent, then all Pro has to do is show convincing examples that prove the resolution.
-Con's burden would be to provide a counter example to disprove Pro's examples. If Con would have shown, for example, an Arctic animal that was not White that may have been enough for me to change my vote but Con did not provide these counter-examples.
-Therefore my vote is for Pro.