Instigator / Pro
14
1553
rating
24
debates
56.25%
won
Topic
#517

Sea lions are seals

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
0
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2

After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

Death23
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
2
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
8
1687
rating
555
debates
68.11%
won
Description

I will be Pro. In other words, I will be arguing that sea lions are seals.

You will be Con. In other words, you will be arguing that sea lions are not seals.

Rules:

Round 1 is only for opening arguments // making your case. Con shall not use round 1 to rebut or otherwise respond to Pro's round 1 arguments .

Round 2 is only for rebuttals to round 1 arguments. Pro shall not use round 2 to rebut or otherwise respond to Con's round 2 arguments.

Judges shall not consider arguments that weren't possible to respond to in compliance with these rules as dropped arguments.

Pro and Con shall not plagiarize, but may reuse their own work.

You forfeit, you lose.

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:

Pros argument depends on all pinnipeds being “seals”. He provides sources to back this up which refer to pinnipeds as seals.

Out of his sources, coincidentally, the Brittanica dictionary defines seal as any of the 32 species of pinniped - con missed that there are actually 34 species of pinniped, and could have used that but didn’t.

Throughout the debate, pro primarily relied on these definitions.

Pro did not offer any argument or sources that explicitly said “Sea lions are seals”, However at least two of his sources came as close as is possible to doing that without being quite that explicit.

On the other hand con did not offer any arguments or sources that explicitly said “Sea lions are not seals either”, however con did offer up multiple examples where sources and information indicate that sea lions are different from seals.

Pro explained that cons sources differentiated sea lions and seals as they are using a narrower definition, but cast the sources that differentiate as not authoritative to define the meaning of the words.

As con has no opportunity to refute, I have to consider that.

A large thrust of cons argument is that only “true seals”, are actual seals. I found this argument wholly lacking, relying on a fairly tenuous dictionary reference and not really relying on any sources - as pro pointed out.

I tend to give more benefit of the doubt to debate positions that appear unwinnable due to definition.

However, cons only argument that pushed me his way was sources that said sea lions were different from seals: but he didn’t do enough, IMO, to justify why all dictionary definitions, and encyclopedias were wrong. To win this, pro not just to separate seals from seal lions, but to explain why this separation is more valid than the definitions con provided. Simply arguing that only true seals are seals, and scientists named the group wrong is not sufficient.

If con had pointed out the Brittanica source 34/32 species thing or similar, and if he had mentioned the word paraphyly, and used examples - I would have awarded the win. But in my view, he fell short in this respect.

Arguments to pro.

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:

enjoyable debate, interesting subject. Essentially, a semantic debate pitting genus vs species, generic vs specific. Analogously, the genus populus is commonly called poplar- even though aspen trees and cottonwoods are conspicuously different from what English speakers call poplar trees, they are all correctly termed poplar trees as a genus. One can generically refer to a grove of aspen and cottonwood as a poplar grove, even in the absence of any specific species popularly called poplar. Likewise, any group of pinnipeds may be referred to generically as seals, even if no species named seal is present. Pro could have been more explicit in the first round, but leaves Con little room to run from a well established syllogism. Con makes a valiant effort but never addresses the central contention: seal applies to genus as well as species. Arguing that sea lions are a different species from any other species called seal has no impact on genus nomenclature. Con is arguing "it should not be so" which does not contradict "it is true today." I'll fault Con somewhat for bringing Wikipedia in for examination, since that source confirms Pro's sources and reminds the reader that Con is arguing against ordinary linguistic and taxonomic convention. Con also cited Oxford to define "true" which strengthens Pro's Oxford definitions for seal and sea lion. Does Con suggest that Oxford can be trusted to define his word but not Pro's? Still, I won't give a source point to Pro since Con had all the heavy lifting research-wise and I disagree with Pro that Con's sources were less than reliable. I admire Con's argument but ultimately he only attacked the central premise at the species level and ignored the genus application.