Instigator / Pro
23
1492
rating
1
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#3032

Con Cannot Prove to Pro (me) That They Truly "Know" Anything.

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
21
Better sources
8
14
Better legibility
7
7
Better conduct
5
7

After 7 votes and with 26 points ahead, the winner is...

Undefeatable
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
2
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
49
1644
rating
64
debates
65.63%
won
Description

No information

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:

Argument - "Hi, BoP is on you Con." is not a very good argument and if Con points out that the burden of proof is on both parties that alone should be sufficient to get ahead in round 1, which he did. "The burden of proof is on the one making the extraordinary claim, as noted by Wikipedia.".. Pro then claims to have fulfilled his/her title by declaring that he/she has failed to read Cons argument and so this means that the statement in the title has been proven true. I believe this could have been busted by Con simply pointing out that Pro cannot prove that he/she did not read Cons argument, though Con did not quite say this. I am tempted to award the argument to Con, however if Pro is telling the truth then Pro has in fact defended the statement in the title, though this does not result in a win for Pro as Con did point out that the burden of proof also applies to Pro. So I will leave this at a tie. Neither proved the other wrong. - Tie

Sources - There can be no doubt about it however that Con produced the better sources. In fact, Pro produced no sources and did not offer any objections to Cons sources, such as the one here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) - Con

S & G - Neither appeared to be under the influence of anything illegal whilst typing - Tie

Conduct - Con at least made the effort to read his/her opponents argument. The same respect was not shown in return - Con

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:

Argument: In spite of Pro's attempt at a cleverly-worded Resolution [not clever at all - it is a red herring], Con makes three major argument mistakes:
1] Shifting the BoP to Con when the Resolution is clearly Pro's to demonstrate, even in a negative [and proving a negative is logic's conundrum, not ours - common knowledge].
2] expecting the proof need be proven to Pro when it is the Voter's place to be convinced of any proof.
3]"Know anything" was the challenge thrown to Con, whoever that was going to be. By mere acknowledgement that Con accepted the debate by Pro saying "Hi" as his first word of argument acknowledges that Con knew enough to accept the debate, which, by itself, Pro proves the Resolution is false all by himself. Pro admits Con knew something; all the BoP Con needs to exhibit.
By contrast, Con actually presents valid arguments in both rounds, including presentation of solid logic n two fronts. Points to Con.

Sources: Pro uses no sources, apparently on the premise they are not needed. Even if not needed, Con presents valid sourcing in both rounds. Points to Con

Legibility: Pro offers little verbiage in either round, even though declaring a 10,000-character limit. On volume alone, offering the greater risk of losing the legibility point, Con ought to win the point, but volume of text is not the proper criteria. Tie.

Conduct: Again, the attempt at a clever Resolution, as described in Argument, and failing, should lose the point for Pro, but, as with Legibility, this is not the correct measure of the Conduct point. The loss of the Argument points is sufficient justification. Tie.

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:

To win, which Pro had 100% chance to force autowin with, all Pro had to do is to give a definition of 'Prove' and work with it to explain why the one being proven to needs to be convinced, in order to validate the 'prove to' being done successfully by Con.

Pro didn't do this, in fact Pro explicitly makes clear that he/she/they hasn't read Con's arguments.

Con assumes Pro is a 'he' which is actually erroneous to do, people should be defaulted to 'they' or if you insist on singular pronouns then 'he/she' until they specify what gender and pronoun they identify as.

As for Pro, the laziness is also bad conduct.

Only Con used sources and used them exactly the way Pro should have, to define 'prove' but it was in the last Round which was dirty play however it's irrelevant how dirty the play was since Pro's entire debate was a dirty play autowin.

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:

PRO never refutes CON's arguments. Even still, CON proves beyond any reasonable doubt (through pure logic) that he knows something.

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:

Arguments: Con shifts the BoP to Pro in his R1. I am fine with it because Pro established the BoP in his R1 rather than the description, where it would not have been challengeable. The rest of Con's case is dropped by Pro.

In R2, Pro says that since Con does not prove his proofs "to him". He probably could have won args here if he successfully contested the BoP because if he did, Pro would have to prove it "to" Con. I interpret the resolution to mean that proving it "to him" means making him aware and accepting of the proofs (because that was probably the intent of the ploy Pro is playing). So Con technically could have won args regardless of Pro's definition (which fails to address the "to me" in the Res). However, Pro has the BoP at this point to prove to Con that "Con Cannot Prove to Pro (me) That They Truly Know Anything", and since Pro fails to establish this absolute statement in R2, Con gets full arg points.

Sources: I will leave these as tied because none of Pro's arguments actually required sources.

S&G: Con's final sentence in R2 contains a non-sequitur and it took me a second to understand what he was getting at ("we can only assume he is convinced" is not necessarily true even if Pro fails to meet his BoP). This was not "excessive", and I am "nitpicking" a bit here (per the Voting Policy), so I will leave these points tied.

Conduct: Pro was abusive; the whole point of the debate was to pretend that the debate was an argument about knowledge when, in reality, Pro was planning to not read Con's argument and claim victory. This is unfair to Con who could not have reasonably expected this, and it precluded substantive education about knowledge. Since theory shells are not well known on DART, I cannot have expected Con to read one, and thus I feel it is appropriate to arbeit abuse issues myself.

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:

Pro did not read con's case, leaving it unrefuted. A foregone conclusion.

Conduct is tempting for this as well, but the failing was already well covered by the argument points; and it was not quite forfeitures nor did pro become vile.

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:

Argument:
The resolution clearly states that Con cannot prove anything to Pro, not that Con can change Pro's mind or that Pro has to "accept" that proof - and Con's definition of proving in the second round is a very good argument towards that. Furthermore, only Con actually fulfills their BoP - Pro actually has their own BoP to fulfill and never even attempts to prove it - it is simply taken as an assumption by Pro that their argument is right, no substantiation whatsoever. Con wins this easily.