Total votes: 4
A few things about PRO. First off, I appreciate that he honed in on a single contention, whereas CON spent most of each round oscillating between several and it was a bit difficult to keep track at times. Bringing only one item to the table is a pretty dicey tactic, however, and even though it allows you to concentrate on a consistent line of attack, if it isn't well kept or fortified enough then it's going to falter. PRO's fatal blunder and ultimately what cost him the victory here is the fact that he put all his eggs in the light-speed basket so that his entire case either stands or falls with it. In the end, it fell, I just didn't find his rebuttals very convincing, plus the whole idea was moot to begin with as CON rightly pointed out.
For CON, as I said he had a myriad of different contentions he brought with him, and to be honest he made his BOP a lot more strenuous than it needed to be; the first round seemed a bit like shotgun argumentation to me, which admittedly got better as the debate moved forward but was still present. After reading everything I feel like CON spent the majority of the time housekeeping and doing maintenance for the initial points he raised. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but I think he could have condensed it more to lessen his own load and to save the reader some fatigue, in turn giving him more space to focus on fleshing his rebuttal of the decisive lightspeed topic, since that's what PRO hinged his entire case on by his own admission. That being said, for a quasi-jumbled case, it was remarkably organized and coherent. I felt lost at times but I was still able to follow along and comprehend what was being said. Just from skimming through the debate, I could already tell who won more points for sources. CON was obviously well-versed in this issue, coming in with two robust, highly-researched points that he clearly spent a lot of time setting up and preparing.
Since both sides are saddled with a BOP for this one, it's going to have to go to CON. His overall case was much more meticulous, grounded, and expansive than his opponent's, as I said if you're going to stick with only one argument it needs to stand against some ruthless scrutiny, which in this case PRO's didn't. CON's explanation and allusion to Adam and Eve being created as adults is enough to prove that God can (and has) created things in their more mature form without engaging in deception, thus destroying PRO's viewpoint (or at least his particular articulation of it.) I'm giving conduct to CON, as he actually made an attempt to reply to everything that was leveled against his position. It's hard to say the same for PRO, who barely interacted with CON's case and didn't provide a cogent defense of it. It almost seemed more halfhearted.
All in all, very interesting debate! Great job to both sides.
This one is pretty clear.
No words. The winner is clear.
I'm not a fan of this 100 character format, as it constricts the debaters and hinders them from hashing their ideas out in full and giving proper responses to each other's points. But in all, I think the winner of this one is CON, as his one-liner "arguments" were generally more compelling and based on better sources.