Ramshutu

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

Full forefeit

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

Concession.

Concession

Concession (confirmed in comments)

Concession

Pro introduces the concept of genetic entropy; and elaborates that’s the issue with Evolution is that it introduces so many negative or deleterious mutations that must necessarily accumulate in populations.

Cons response was mostly to simply ignore the entire thesis offered by saying it’s not a problem. Without a rebuttal that explains why pros premise is wrong, or without a source to confirm the limited impact of mutations - the point is unrefuted. The remainder of cons first round is mostly just an explanation of evolution - rather than specifically addressing the premise. Even if I accept cons explanation as true - the detail pro gave is unrefuted.

Pro goes on to elaborate in the next round: Specifically going into detail by explaining that seed populations would be subject to massive inbreeding, the sharing of damaged gene copies to the point of genetic deterioration - and pro explains the premise of this pretty well. Pro explains the premise of how natural selection cannot weed out deleterious mutations, which allow the negative mutations to accumulate over time. Most of this is a restatement of the round 1 argument, but dives into much more detail of the specific mechanics.

Cons R2 again ignores this whole argument from pro.

Pro repeats the claims about genetic deterioration venturing into the position of genetic information ; to be followed up with con forfeiting and then claiming victory in the last round - claiming that he had addressed the key point.

Pros main thesis is wholly unaddressed. Con has to defend the issues of genetic deterioration that were well explained - imo this is a low bar as con could have sourced the many examples of organisms not deteriorating over time today; or provided an explanation of why such deterioration doesn’t actually occur.

Given that pros case is wholly unaddressed other than a simple throwaway unsourced denial in R1 by con - arguments to pro:

Conduct to pro for the forfeit.

Sources: no one is ever going to earn a source point from me citing creation.com. Ever; the source is too biased.

Full forfeit.

Great debate! Pity it didn’t go the distance.

1.) Con - The universe wasn’t caused. - there for no need for God.

This argument is basically that the universe only has a cause if the A theory of time is true (there is a material difference between past and present - evidenced by tensed facts) . This was quite a complex topic to wrap your head around, but actually pretty compelling; con shows (imo) that the a theory of time can’t be true - and refutes causation per that syllogism. Con appears to be arguing a boundless universe; that there is no point in time where the universe isn’t in existent - thus the existence is not tensed.

Pros rebuttal didn’t scratch the surface here; merely arguing that the pro is claiming an absence of change - which isn’t the case. I feel con didn’t do himself any favours though as I feel his explanation was a bit on the complex side. There was back and forth, but nothing pro seemed to offer that dealt with the apparent lack of tensed facts.

Retrocausality was an interesting issue raised by con; arguing that B theory of time theoretically allows events in the future to affect the past. I don’t feel this point was particular compelling - it was a possibility but not one I feel was well enough established to affect the debate.

2.) Occams Razor.

Con argues the premise of parsimony; that if an entity was less than the utmost of key properties, it would be parsimonious; as would the premise of emergence rather than divine creation - the first point was elaborated, but I was hoping for more as to why emergence was more parsimonious.

Pro mostly dismissed Occam’s razor; imo pro has to show that his example is more parsimonious, instead pro appeared to dodge the point.

3.) secondary properties are inconsistent.

Con argues that God as an entity can’t exist as the properties posited are all secondary (like temperature).

I don’t think this is a great argument, as I don’t think that there is any statement that these properties are the only properties. It’s not well refuted by pro who mostly hand waved; so I would consider refuted, but imo it didn’t have warrant.

4.) Argument from contingency.

Pro argues that the universe must have a cause as things within it all have a cause. Con points out that this falls foul of the fallacy of composition; that pro is assuming that the nature of the universe must be the same as the objects within it. There is some back and forth, with an example of a red carpet - which I felt con based away well.

This was enough imo, to invalidate pros argument: note, I didn’t really assess the dichotomy argument con made as even if I assume he’s wrong, the main argument still holds.

5.) KCA

Boiler plate KCA, it’s similar to other examples so won’t waste ink.

- Con argues actual infinities exist, that the issue is that infinite’s seems unintuitive rather than illogical.
- That pro assumes everything requires a cause based on observation - yet pro assumes that things can be created ex-nillio despite the lack of observation.

Imo this ties in with cons statement of fallacy of composition. The Big Bang theory portion of this also appears closely related to B theory of time (no point of creation).

In all these cases con has the edge, or wins all 5 points. Thus arguments to con.

Conduct to con for the forfeits.

Full forfeit

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit.

As pro is making the wide claim, he has the burden of proof.

Pro, in my view, has to provide an explanation as to what facets of morality cannot be explained by anything other than a supreme diety, preferably in contrast to other ubiquitous explanations. There must be an attempt to provide a case as to why these properties are likely unexplainable by any other mechanisms due to their nature.

Pro doesn’t attempt to do this, and instead mostly just holds up a set of facts and then says God did it. Con does well in this debate by pointing out this is the case with the minimum number of words possible.

As a result, pro doesn’t come close to upholding his burden of proof. Pro appears to explicitly assert morality exists and is created by God, then offers a series of anecdotes that do not warrant the claim.(if you’re sad you die younger, stress is harmful, you live longer if you “obey god”). These seem completely unrelated to the contention pro is offering.

As a result of this - arguments must go to con.

I’m going to follow cons description here, as it’s the simplest, most concise and doesn’t appear to be challenged.

Was there an “offer”?

Con argues there is uncertainty about what was said. Whilst pro pointed out several reasons why what was said should be accepted: that if it wasn’t said then an official memo had been doctored, or people would have challenged the content. My issue here is that con appears to be implicitly arguing that as the transcript is not verbatim it may not show anything closely resembling what it said: in my view con has not shown good reason to believe the transcript is not materially different.

In terms of quid pro quo - con argues there was nothing given or offered; yet pro points out the close relationship to the javelin missiles; and the withholding of military aid - which it is unreasonable to presume the ukranian president didn’t know about. Even then as pro points out - solicitation does not itself require quid pro quo.

Was this “secret” - or covered up.

Pro, imo concedes this point with this line : “Trump has been moving phone calls to a classified server frequently to avoid information leaks, not to hide any illegal actions”

Pro concedes that Trump classified the memo (and other), with the express intent of avoiding its wider distribution that may allow its contents to become public. By definition - this was thus a secret call.

Was it illegal.

This is the trickier portion. The idea pro forwards is that the investigation into the political opponent is a “thing of value”. That the investigation would have helped Trump, would have otherwise cost lots of money for his campaign to have achieved - if it could have been achieved at all - and thus the request constituted an attempt to illicit an illegal in kind donation.

Con doesn’t appear to contest this legal definition - and I think this was a mistake on his part. I feel this was the ripest if the three bullets points to attack.

Given that, cons objection seems mostly related to how direct and explicit the request was; with a side bar relating to whether the act had an alternate valid executive purpose.

For the valid alternative purpose - con argues that it wasn’t an investigation in to Bidens specifically as much as a generalized investigation.

Pro pointing out that the approach was very much not the appropriate mechanism for doing that, and that Trump was fixated solely with his rival and not other key players, undermines this point.

In terms of how direct and explicit the request was: cons argument seems to be that it can’t be a campaign finance violation if they don’t explicitly mention the campaign - this does not seem compelling to me tbh. Pros response that it merely needs to be in connection with the election is sufficient imo, especially given that it appears apparent and evidently linked.

As a result of this: I think pro established that there was a request - con conceded it was secret - and it was illegal. Though this latter part was the weakest.

As pro established his requirements - arguments go to pro.

Full forfeit.

Forfeit from both sides.

Ff.

Ff.

The burden of proof here is clearly on con. To win, con must show an event, or time period in which “white people” or white civilization would be unable to survive without the intervention of black people. The only example pro gave was the Black Death - where con claims the moors saved all white people in Europe. Con claims they brought medicine, but doesn’t appear to claim that they cured the Black Death, or manages to support the contention that all white people would have died without the intervention of black people. As a result pros burden is clearly unfulfilled, and con wins by default.

However, pros rebuttal to this key point, explaining that the Black Death ended not by the moors but by everyone susceptible dying, is a better and more supported explanation.

Pros additional examples of white people being broadly successful before and since does far more to affirm the resolution than the sole half-point that con adds.

As a result, arguments go to con.

Conduct:

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

To start with, I’m not going consider to pros alternative theories as part of this debate. They appear to be mostly pre-emotive attacks, and con doesn’t appear to be advocating for them: as a result, they don’t impact 9! the resolution.

A key point for them, however, is that they presume the information depicted in the bible is accurate - but present alternative explanations.

The issue really boils down to whether the Bible is a reliable source. Here pro advocates for the historical perspective of criticism, but here imo pro doesn’t connect the dots.

For me, pro doesn’t establish the link between why many copies exist and why they can be considered reliable and why the events they depict are correct.

The source itself indicates it is addressing the question of whether the Bible was handed down correctly - not necessarily whether the core content was accurate.

I can accept that the bible hasn’t changed much from the originals - but if the originals aren’t accurate - the Bible isn’t reliable, it is that aspect that pro fails to show imo. Throughout the debate, I felt that pro kept pounding this point, without adding to it until the final round. In the subsequent round pro adds an additional source to show the aspects of criticism of reliability - which is a different argument from the opening R1. Pro needed to have shown reliability going through his own sources list and showing how they apply.

Con on the other hand, in the penultimate round does go through that list and provides a very rudimentary dissmissal of this lists applicability to the bible; I would have liked him to use examples of how the bible fails to meet these criteria, but with speed race having BoP, I think calling into question that validity is itself sufficient.

In terms of the opening, I didn’t think cons rebuttal was strong; pro correctly pointed out printing presses, make the scenario different - which I kinda agree with but would have liked more detail for pro. For con, his argument about making the opinions rather than events reliable undercut his argument. He would have been better using, fairytale events as an example.

But all told however, I am faced with two voting issues. The first is that the opening R1 didn’t appear to support the resolution for pro, it appeared unwarranted. The second is that cons rejecting the ability of pros second list threw down the gauntlet to make pro show why the Bible meets those criteria. As a result of that rebuttal - and the R1 issue, imo Pro has not met his burden of proof and arguments must go to con.

There is a lot to unpack in this debate.

The primary arguments from con are mostly related to cost, that gasoline is fading, as electric engines are the future. In the opening round con outlined that range and reliability are improving and not a substantial barrier. These were mostly acknowledged by pro, and I can’t see these being substantially challenged by him - in fact they appeared to be accepted as benefits. As a result, these benefits have to be given.

Noise pollution and air pollution themselves are concerns that are also motivated by electric planes - as is the concept of training people on the future, with ICE’s on their way out. Most of these again, went largely uncontested.

In terms of the negative cases, pro raises issues with recharging time and availability - to which con points out the particulars of lithium battery charging are improving and close to that of gas. I think con does well enough to show that the issues are not to the point of detrimental.

These practicality issues again appear largely motivated by con also.

The safety issues, I felt were pros strongest aspect. The possibility of major fire after crashes were motivated by con; but the difficulty of putting out a fire, is a point I didn’t feel mitigated by con - other to say that 20vs2000 does improve limit the possibility of other types of failure.

The issue with electrical failures mentioned by pro was not addressed at all as far I can see- but also not expanded upon by pro.

I couldn’t find parts of cons argument that addressed battery degradation over time, or temperature performance other to than it would need to be addressed.

Pro could actually have won this on these grounds by arguing that with an unknown safety record, and technological solutions that are currently unspecified is not a desirable scenario for learner pilots; however neither side explains how much prototyping, and timescales to use - as it wasn’t clear where this was a general “shift” or “let’s go with what we have today”, that muddied the water somewhat. Given that safety seems a huge barrier to adopting a new type of plane over efficiency, or it being the way forward, this aspect largely weights itself the point that it raised an inherent doubt in my mind.

However, as this wasn’t really argued to a substantial degree by pro, I can’t award this in pros favour. However imo, while I am leaning towards con, there’s too much of a question mark over the weighting of the safety aspects raised to award it to con either.

As a result, I am awarding this as a tie.

I would have awarded the win to con had he done more to explicitly weight the safety concerns or unknowns here against the immediate benefits; or presented a plan whereby, say, the issues are presented as technical knowns that would be demonstrably next addressed; there was some of this, but it fell short of what I needed to push me over the line.

Full forfeit

FF.

Forfeiture

Conduct to pro for the forfeit.

Even if I accepted everything that con said as true on its face - it does not negate the resolution, and nothing con said related directly to the contention pro made - saying co2 will return to normal does not negate that modern climate change is being driven by humans. As pro made a basic argument to tie co2 to human involvement, and co2 to climate- he meets his basic burden of proof and arguments must go to pro.

Full forfeit.

Pro must show that the site is elitist and “bullshit”, even taking a more generalized description of bullshit, pros primary argument appeared to be that he doesn’t like the voting rules. As pro is making the specific claim, he has the burden of proof and it appears that his entire argument seems largely redundant to the contention he’s trying to justify.

The debate quickly deteriorated into pro simply objecting to voting rules without a clear reason for why he feels they are unfair or unreasonable, not only is this countered with the basic claim that these are the site rules, and by the fact that even if I accept everything pro said - it still doesn’t justify the premise. As everything pro said was unrelated to the contention - arguments go to con.

As a note to Con, I think it would be beneficial for you to spend a bit more time on a positive case while focusing on rebuttals works at a basic level for burden of proof, it’s dangerous not to offer a positive case. I think it could have been good here to argue why the site isn’t elitist (newish members being allowed to vote, old voters being removed) - it would be more useful in cases where your opponent offers a larger case.

This has to go to con unfortunately; pros main argument is that a comedian should not be president as he has no political experience. Con points out that Lincoln and Reagan were actors and were good presidents, and Zelensky is a trained lawyer and has interest in local politics. These cast significantly doubt on the resolution and in the absence of a clear rebuttal should stand.

Pro makes rather exaggerated claims about voter bias on the site, but gives no specific examples or any non-generic argument. Whilst this would stand, con provided a single example of a voter voting against their pre conceived notions in a debate. Whilst this is an anecdote, it is the only hard evidence presented by either side.

Both sides argue mostly their opinion about the nature of bias votes, but as con has the benefit of not making the claim and not having burden of proof, his pointing out that the con hasn’t offered any concrete examples and thus his claims are merely opinion underscores that pro hasn’t met his burden of proof.

For these two reasons, con does enough to pull the rug out of pros tenuous argument - win to con.

Full forfeit

The 3 forfeits for each side is a bit excessive.

600th vote!

Pro forfeited the last three rounds - up until the final round there were limited, if any, tangible impacts offered by pro; meaning that con was ahead by default. However, pro specified a key set of major economic harms, from reduced power to harm to the economy - which on balance outweighed the harms presented by con.

The loss of GDP growth and generalized long term harms presented by con seemed to clearly outweighing the problems con raises in terms of poor budgeting on the EU, demographics, etc. It’s somewhat harder to weigh as neither side decided to provide a rebuttal of the other, however this, in addition to the forfeits reinforce the issue with impacts - leading the conclusion that the win goes to pro.

More poetry slam than rap freestyle; but to be honest, other than the forfeit there was little to separate both sides; as a poetry, but rhymed pretty well and set forth a good emotional narrative, without disses I don’t have a good clear benchmark that sets one above the other; thus I am going against the forfeit.

Conduct to pro due to One more forfeit by con

Arguments: the win here was in R1 then the penultimate round, pro argues that trump committed impeachable crimes, and thus should be investigated and impeached. This basically establishes a minimal burden of proof.

Con counters by arguing that people don’t support impeachment. Pro sufficiently pointed out that the support is growing and would be low at the start of an enquirey and grow. In reality I don’t see the validity of cons contention that popular support should be a determining factor on whether a president should be accused of high crimes and misdemeanours. As a result, arguments go to pro.

Conduct goes for the forfeit.

Pro was much funnier; quotes like “Gloat like a butterfly, sting like a G,” and “This is more a trillion-on-1 gangbang than a 2-on-2 foursome” made me laugh much more; the complexity of the second round from Gatorades first stanza was amazing and cast a long shadow over the rest. Con was let down a lot by the end of the debate with what felt like a half-hearted rap. I felt here that the main issue with cons parts is that while the rhymes were good, the focus was more on making the rhyme than trying to make the insult make sense, there were a few reasonable insults but the whole thing felt a lot more disjoint.

I’m awarding a balance of 1 point here on that basis; that with the forfeit, I felt pro clearly did a better job of the typical rap battle, but the difference was not so huge as to warrant a bigger point value win

Pro asserted that white people are officially branded as terrorists - then shifted this to white supremacy in the opening. Con spelled out what pro needed to do to win; provide specific links and evidence as to the official status of white people. Pro didn’t do this at all, and instead relied on this assertion. As pro has burden of proof, not providing this evidence when challenged essentially means he loses the debate.

As a result, clear cut result of arguments to con is the only decision I can make.

Conduct: pro seems more interested in just throwing out hate speech and admonishing white people, and it was evident in later rounds, that he was primarily interested solely in this aspect of the debate and not engaging. As this sort of hate speech is pretty toxic in debates, this warrants a clear violation of conduct.

The main contention made that Democrat run blue states have a better economic standards, and democratic presidents do better with the economy.

This argument was set up in round 1, with some basic evidence, only to be answered with a definitional Kritik, with the argument that democrats institute economically liberal policies - not left wing policies.

This is a bit of an jumbled kritik, as pro claims that we should be talking about America (by comparing the “left wing” policies of Norway), and then arguing that “left wing” and “liberalism” mean something different in Europe.

Given that no one disagrees that Democrats are broadly on the left, and republicans are broadly on the right - con has to go into substantially more detail about democrats, their generally understood policies, and providing justification as to why they would be considered “centrist.” Without this, I don’t feel con meets his burden of proof, thus arguments must go to pro.

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.

I will not consider arguments copy pasted without context or any attempt to use their own words; so I am not considering pros R1.

There are two main arguments here.

Firstly, that there are only two sexes, and everything else is a defect. Pro doesn’t offer any reason or justification as to why, even if we accept this, those defects shouldn’t be considered as different from male and female. Indeed, pros own wording here appears to concede the debate.

Pro effectively appears to acknowledge that there is a variety of different aspects to gender, but simply decides to simply assert that these should not be considered as states.

As pro does not offer any clear justification as to why the alternative aspects of gender should be ignored - he loses arguments.

The second argument is that gender and physical sex is different. Con does pretty well to tie in all the aspects of gender identity that currently go into to what we consider gender, and ties these together pretty well with sources. The distinction between gender and sex mitigates much of what pro is arguing related to there only being two sexes. Pros approach appears to be to simply hammer home the same argument that he already made, rather than directly assess the argument that con made.

In both cases, con presents a valid point that refutes pros key premise - and as such arguments go to con.

Sources: sources go to con here. Specifically related to how they built up the case showing the complexity of gender and differentiation purely from sex. The testosterone link, and the glass link on the removal of gender non conformance as a mental illness greatly boosted cons warrant. As pro dis not really present a link that clearly bolstered the resolution (only the argument he made that appeared to refute the resolution), sources here must go to con too.

To win here, pro must show a clear correlation between crime rate and gun laws. In the first round pro compares countries that suits his conclusion by showing a limit set of correlation. Con counters this by showing clearly indicative examples that show that the relationship is at least more complex than pro gives it credit for.

Pros rebuttal here is basically to double down on what amounts to cherry picking: saying that it’s not valid to compare different countries while, at the same time, basing his argument of comparing countries.

Given that the premise requires the establishment of correlation - pro falls substantially short, and as a result this must go to con.

Full forfeit

Full forfeit