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>Reported Vote: Nyxified // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
See Voting Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter sufficiently explains their decision on the basis of the given arguments. The voter clearly adds a little to certain points (e.g. using the cure for cancer as a potential impact of Con's butterfly effect argument and employing the term "cishets") but the voter criticizes both sides and provides reasons why specific arguments and interpretations of the resolution determine where their vote goes.
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>Reported Vote: oromagi // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 7 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
full forfeit
>Reason for Mod Action:
As neither side in this debate presented an argument, the voter's justification that there was a full forfeit is insufficient reason to award points.
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>Reported Vote: Barney // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
See Voting Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter specifically covers a wide variety of arguments from the debate, includes specific points made by both sides under those arguments, and determines the outcome of the debate on that basis. That is sufficient to award argument points.
Your condemnations of Barney's vote are continuously straying into personal attacks. If you have a problem with his vote, please keep your criticisms to the substance of that vote and take the focus off of Barney himself. He may be a mod, but that doesn't excuse the insults.
I also appreciate your clarification, Novice, though I'm not sure who the latter is directed at, specifically. Wasn't the clarification I was hoping for after you attacked my vote for ignoring arguments or bias, but it doesn't appear that you're willing to clarify what you see as problematic in my vote after disparaging it. Oh well.
I’m sincerely curious. What arguments do you believe I ignored? The only other points I could find were non-sequiturs about how we should perceive other cops (specifically black cops) if we say that DC is racist for killing one black man, which was both an incorrect portrayal of your opponent’s argument and not particularly relevant to this debate. But please, explain what I missed. I’ll be glad to look over and consider any arguments that you feel I didn’t cover.
Yeah, and in a debate with more than two rounds, it's not unusual to deal in rebuttals after the first round. I generally don't like two-round debates for the reason that it doesn't give the space for arguments to develop and since it gives the last word to counter-rebuttals, there's not much room for synthesis or weighing points.
Not sure what you're expecting. Most of the interest in this debate will likely be in the outcome, though even for someone like me who is keeping up with the debate as it goes, I'm not really interested in providing running commentary. I will say that setting the character limit so high was... a choice, one that might put off other voters depending on how long the remaining rounds are.
…I’m honestly having trouble understanding the question. The relevance of a given source to the debate and, often as a result, to source points isn’t something that we as moderators would determine, so whether you’d make that call is up to you.
I'm not asking you to agree to disagree. If you don't like my RFD, so be it. I'll simply agree to your disagreement and you'll continue to be disagreeable. I'm not going to argue the point any further because you're not interested in engaging with the specifics of my RFD and instead seem more interested in attacking it with generalities. I've already talked about tabula rasa, too, though you didn't seem interested in engaging with that, either.
I wrote out very specifically where I thought he fell short. You disagree. That’s fine, I’m not interested in convincing you, and if Novice’s takeaway from all this is that I wrote all that as a long-form way of saying I was just voting based on my biases, then that’s his choice. But, for the record, just because someone is being exploited by a definition doesn’t mean they cannot exploit an obvious problem with that definitional setup. It’s a different kind of exploiting. I believe that Benjamin did enough to accomplish that.
I disagree that this debate represents something so unique or important, and more importantly, I think that the way you’re framing it as emblematic of some larger principle just isn’t accurate. I can’t speak to the specific goals of other voters, but my goal here isn’t to punish someone who utilizes a non-standard way of defining the resolution. If he had argued back the topicality successfully, I would have voted for Pro, whether I personally agreed with his framing of the debate or not. So if Novice wants to, as you put it, be a “creative ensnarer in tricky debates,” I think the votes against him should inform him that doing so comes with its own risks. You can call Benjamin a complainer, but he exploited one of those risks in a way that several of us found persuasive. You can blame that on voter bias and throw up your hands, or you can take something constructive from it and do better next time. Your choice.
I didn’t “randomly” decide anything. I explained why that particular issue was the one that stood out to me as most pivotal in the debate. You don’t agree with that, but I don’t see you giving reasons why I’m wrong. For all you’re claiming that we’re calling you angry or toxic (or are getting ready to do so at some point), both Barney and I have tried to engage with you directly. I’m personally asking you to engage with the text of my RFD rather than generalizing about my imposing my own views on the debate.
As I said to RM, if you've got a problem with my vote, I'm willing to discuss it. I feel I have a long enough voting history on this site and DDO for my voting paradigm to be pretty clear by this point, and no, I don't purport to be perfectly tabula rasa in every decision. I also don't think that that kind of voting is always best, though I respect the view from some voters that being tabula rasa should always be the aim.
This isn't the first time we've disagreed about how judges should view a debate and I have little doubt that it will be the last. I've got my disagreements with your vote, but I respect your decision and the time you put into writing it out. That being said, I think the claim that your vote is purely tabula rasa is just straight up wrong. You are not a blank slate and you don't behave like one as a judge. None of us do. We can attempt to do so, but we all come in with biases or against specific arguments and argument types, regardless of our feelings on the debaters or the topic.
As for why I voted the way I did, I have a whole RFD written out that explains it. If you want to chalk that up to bias and assumption on my part, I guess that's your prerogative, but it's not the basis for my decision. I gave how I saw the resolution, pointed to the arguments from Con that established a similar conclusion, and explained why they were persuasive. I'm not going to get into an argument over which side did the better job on every single point because, as I said at the top, there wasn't really a debate here and it didn't end up mattering much anyway. For me, it came down to semantics: whether Con sufficiently demonstrated a problem with the way the debate was framed, and whether Pro effectively defended his interpretation of the resolution. Both could have done better in these regards, but I see Con doing enough to get his point across, and I see Pro dismissing that point without addressing it. If you've got a problem with that, then clarify it because what I've seen so far is a bunch of generalized frustration.
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>Reported Vote: Jeff_Goldblum // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 4 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
From the first round, it is clear PRO engaged in a bad-faith misrepresentation of the case they intended to argue. Headlining a debate with "creationism should be taught in schools," without any additional details provided very clearly implies the proponent will argue along the same lines as conservatives and religious fundamentalists who advocate for creationism to be taught alongside evolution.
But that's not what Pro does. Instead they attempt to spring a manner of semantics ambush in R1, arguing that learning about creationism is important to various academic disciplines, just as learning about outmoded cosmologies is important to astronomy, for example.
Con very correctly and concisely calls this out, making plain the distinction between teaching creationism and teaching about creationism. Everything that follows in the debate is peripheral to this core issue; the BoP is on Pro by default, and having built the foundation of their argument on bad-faith semantics, their argument is weak indeed.
For these reasons, I award arguments to Con. I also award Conduct, because I have no patience for Pro's clumsy and unsportsmanlike attempt to move the goalposts.
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter does explain his interpretation of the resolution, how that affects the BoP in this debate, and as a result how arguments should be evaluated. That is sufficient for awarding arguments, though the justification on conduct is not sufficient. Introducing definitions in R1 instead of in the description is not a sufficient basis for awarding conduct. Even when it comes to giving slanted definitions, awarding conduct on the basis that the voter knows the more common usage of the terminology is not sufficient, particularly as the voter attributes much of this to the intentions of Pro, going beyond what was written in this debate to try to infer what the debater was thinking.
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>Reported Vote: RationalMadman // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 6 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
See Vote Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter goes to extensive lengths to explain each of his point allocations and does so sufficiently on each.
I'm not sure what you see in Barney's RFD that would invalidate it based on the voting rules of the site, but I said as much when I removed his first vote. He stretched the rules a bit on Conduct, but his vote is clearly sufficient under the voting standards for Arguments.
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>Reported Vote: Barney // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
See Vote Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter provides more than sufficient reasoning to meet the voting standards for awarding arguments.
Noted. I understand your perspective on it better, though for the purposes of what suffices as a Kritik, I think this gets into some troublesome territory. I would personally agree with you that this kind of tactic is problematic, so this is largely an issue of how it applies to the rules of this debate and the voting standards in general.
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>Reported Vote: Barney // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 4 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
See Comment #35
>Reason for Mod Action:
While the argument points are sufficiently justified, the conduct point is insufficient. The voter appears to justify this on the basis of both the perceived bait and switch, which isn't a sufficient basis for awarding conduct, and the perception that Pro used a Kritik in their argument, which is only lightly explained. Much as it is a frustrating tactic to wait until R1 to give definitions essential to the topic, particularly if they are slanted, that doesn't make it a Kritik. Since both sides ended up trying to redefine the topic, it also makes this decision too selective.
Pro's case is largely a semantics kritik, executed via hiding his definitions until R1.
Pro argues general information on the belief existing part of history and science, in addition to religious studies at a university level. In addition to philosophy just because. All this counts as teaching it.
Con uses an effective appeal to absurdity to challenge this notion, via pointing out that it would be the same to claim they are teaching "alchemy, flat earth theory and slavery." He then builds the distinction in teaching using math as an example showing how the word is understood in common English.
Pro does an ok defense of the math with pointing out how few students go on to become mathematicians by trade.
Semantics:
Con immediately attacks the BoP rests on the contender proclamation as disingenuous, as well as the claim that school usually refers to universities instead of the much more common k-12 environment.
Pro challenges that schools ought to include any place of learning, to include trade schools (I'm scratching my head at this one; but con misses it, so not damning).
Con catches that pro is having to use secondary definitions, and calls to pro's own sources that include dancing schools as a reference to his cherry-picked definition to dismiss it from consideration.
Pro basically calls it unfair to have his case attacked on multiple fronts here (I'm left somewhat curious what a dancer needs to know about creation myths).
Con further builds that creationism refers to an anti-science movement, linked directly to pro's own definition.
Pro oddly immediately at the start of R2 doubles down insisting that con's wrong and that his definition is binding... The definition that con agrees to, and was just leveraged against pro's case. Later in R2 pro does better by trying to separate his case from the movement, by reminding us he is not endorsing all other ideas that movement would demand.
Intelligent Design:
Pro quotes the pope, to argue that we should teach ID. Pro goes to some lengths here about how ID doesn't contradict evolution.
The big obvious problem here is that it's pre-refuted by con having already reminded us with the authority of the pope that ID goes against the branch of creationism this debate is centered on. Which pro catches and reminds of of the "rather than" part of the definition.
Pro tries to double down on ID in a repetition fallacy, which fails to challenge his chosen and locked in definition for creationism being specifically mutually exclusive.
Conduct should be obvious. While the bait and switch type debate is frowned upon, it might not be enough, but he specifically set a "Kritiks are banned" rule in the description.
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>Reported Vote: RationalMadman // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 6 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
See Comment #33
>Reason for Mod Action:
While the argument points are sufficiently justified, both the conduct and source points are insufficient. For the former, Pro points out that both sides are guilty of moving the goalposts, but claims that only Con is guilty of breaking the rule regarding Kritiks. It's unclear that the character assassination he points to is sufficient to award conduct as well, since it appears related to the design of the debate rather than functioning as a personal attack. Regarding sources, considering the number that each side uses, it is reductive to limit the analysis of Con's sources to two that he presented in R1. The use of specific source types like .org and .edu also does not suffice as a reason to award these points.
There are several correct points Con brings to the table, what Con doesn't do is capitalise on them nearly enough to win the debate.
Pro did significantly shift the goalposts from the get-go, yet Con never shifts them back.
Pro did write a near-truism in the resolution if one believes that Creationism as an idea should be taught in philosophy and religious studies, Con doesn't deal with this truism or prove why it's inherently unforgivable.
Pro did have a flaw, since they don't defend Creationism as necessarily being true but here is where the problem really set in... For Con to handle these things, he has to Kritik the goalposts/framework of Pro, Kritik the debate as being a ridiculous/absurd truism or Kritik the idea of Creationism itself as being a valid contender to be taught at schools. The debate's description, which both debaters agree to upon acceptance of the debate, explicitly bans Kritiks. This is the problem for Con.
Con's own source about Creationism says this: "In 1950 Pope Pius XII released an encyclical confirming that there is no intrinsic conflict between the theory of evolution and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, provided that Catholics still believe that humans are endowed with a soul created by God. In 1996 Pope John Paul II expanded and reiterated the church’s position, affirming evolution as "more than a hypothesis." and Pro strongly points this out in Round 2 as well as quoting a similar source on Wikipedia regarding these announcements. If Popes themselves are declaring evolution to work in tandem with Creationism, Con's point that we ought to discard Creationism from school curricula because it contradicts evolution... to back this up he points out that most Creationists consider it as valid as evolution (that isn't proof it contradicts). He did however prove that most creationists consider it as scientifically valid as evolution but yet again didn't prove that it wasn't as scientifically valid as evolution. In fact the only point he makes himself on the matter seems to be this: "creationism stands out as a weird outlier today."
That is literally his only point that wasn't just reiterating his sources on most Creationists not considering the Theory of Evolution as being superior in validity.
In contrast, Pro almost wins the entire debate in Round 2 by what is said at the end. Firstly, Pro successfully lies about moving the goalposts (Con never really explains how they were moved again, just cries about the debate being a truism and that schools are not always universities, but religion is taught even at school level so...). Then, after having already twisted Con's source against him, Pro says both can be taught (which Con's own source in Round 2 in the QUOTED SECTION THAT CON HAD AS AN EXCERPT says that most Creationists want both Creationism and Evolution being taught side by side. Then, Pro points out that Con's complaint about the motives of Creationists 'has been proven to be irrelevant because just because you believe something to be a more largely sinister movement, does not mean it is understood, taught, and accepted in this way.'
The remainder of the debate from Con is a continual character assassination of Pro, breaking of the Kritik rule to justify goalpost movement (which he doesn't move back, ever, he just keeps saying they are moved and that that is wrong but doesn't move them back) and basically a tantrum. Let me be clear, if the CoC really literally ruled out truisms, Con broke the CoC knowingly by accepting and enabling a banned debate to take place. So, really he should be begging voters to rethink that notion or they'd realise that he just accepted this for an easy win, instead of the accusation he has that Pro made an autowin Truism.
As for sources, not only did 2 of Con's sources in the very first Round of debate really contradict his case that Creationism inherently needs to rule out evolution to work but Pro consistently uses .org and .edu sources only resorting to Wikipedia for covering general overviews like the Popes' stances on Creationism.
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>Reported Vote: Phenenas // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 4 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
Pro broke their own "kritiks are banned" rule starting round 1. That alone is enough for conduct and arguments to go to Con.
>Reason for Mod Action:
While decisions may be based on the rules of a debate to award both arguments and conduct, this voter has not explained how Pro violated the stated rule within the debate and, upon inspection of his arguments, it is unclear that a violation occurred. The voter must justify the interpretation that Pro used a kritik in their argument, as it appears that Con did not accuse Pro of doing so (the closest thing I can find is Con saying that Pro defined the debate in such a way as to make it a truism, which would require a kritik on Con's part to address, i.e. he expressed his frustration that he couldn't kritik Pro's argument without violating the rule). If the voter feels that his interpretation of Pro's argument is justified, then it must be clarified what argument he sees as a kritik and why.
It's borderline at best. I don't see him doing a lot to go through Pro's arguments and what is directly responsive to his points from Con, though more concerning than that he is apparently providing some external argumentation as part of his RFD, saying that an argument about radiocarbon dating "survived their most ardent attacks" without showing how this happened in the debate. I'd personally say that it's insufficient, but I'd have to give this more thought to determine if it strays too far from the voting standards.
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>Reported Vote: ADreamOfLiberty // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 6 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
Full analysis: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7460-debate-analysis-of-nuclear-energy-is-a-better-replacement-for-fossil-fuels?page=1&post_number=1
So this debate was not won deductively by either side, therefore the points I award cannot be justified certainly. It is tempting to try and damn Con for not understanding that dams are dangerous (pun intended) but the relevance is not particularly high. Overall Con simply did not do any kind of quantitative analysis which would be required to compare different factors between wind/solar and nuclear. Pro granted nuclear was more dangerous in round 1, yet Con kept making a big deal out of it. If Con wanted more than the admission of "safer by a slim margin" he needed more than the presumption that nuclear was a lot more dangerous than Pro's references claimed it was because "devious". Con failed entirely on reliability. Pro's essential claim which he finally backed in round 3 was that it didn't matter if nuclear was slightly more dangerous than a solar panel because it was safe enough to be ignored, meanwhile nuclear reactors could actually be built fast enough and cheap enough to replace fossil fuels in a generation.
There is no absolute or agreed upon way to balance risk to human life against dollars and joules but the notion that there is no acceptable tradeoff is pure emotional appeal. No human has ever lived without some risk, anything less risky than driving a car should not be used as an objection in serious and honest debate.
It is my judgement that Pro made more important points than Con and defended them.
>Reason for Mod Action:
While the voter provides more than sufficient analysis of the arguments in the debate to warrant the allocation of those points and the source points are borderline sufficiently justified, the conduct point is not sufficiently justified. The use of a strawman fallacy, by itself, is not sufficient reason to award this point and the voter appears to recognize that. If this vote is posted again minus the conduct point, it will be sufficient under the voting standards.
Well, regardless of the reason, I am going to read through this and give feedback. I think there's some value in having a fresh set of eyes look at a debate after some time, though it shouldn't be for the purpose of trying to prove a point.
I've got one more debate ahead of this (promised to vote on it a while back and lost track), so it'll be a bit before I can get through it, but I promise I will.
Can't recall if I started reading this back when it was in the voting period and just ran out of time or what, but I'll give it a read and a brief opinion.
I appreciate your attention and interest. Hopefully we are both being clear about the issues at play here, though I know we are not be providing all the details, as that might be overly exhaustive. I hope you’ll choose to vote when this ends.
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>Reported Vote: Nyxified // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
See Voting Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter sufficiently explains their decision on the basis of the given arguments. The voter clearly adds a little to certain points (e.g. using the cure for cancer as a potential impact of Con's butterfly effect argument and employing the term "cishets") but the voter criticizes both sides and provides reasons why specific arguments and interpretations of the resolution determine where their vote goes.
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>Reported Vote: oromagi // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 7 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
full forfeit
>Reason for Mod Action:
As neither side in this debate presented an argument, the voter's justification that there was a full forfeit is insufficient reason to award points.
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>Reported Vote: Barney // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
See Voting Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter specifically covers a wide variety of arguments from the debate, includes specific points made by both sides under those arguments, and determines the outcome of the debate on that basis. That is sufficient to award argument points.
Your condemnations of Barney's vote are continuously straying into personal attacks. If you have a problem with his vote, please keep your criticisms to the substance of that vote and take the focus off of Barney himself. He may be a mod, but that doesn't excuse the insults.
Appreciate the response, Barney.
I also appreciate your clarification, Novice, though I'm not sure who the latter is directed at, specifically. Wasn't the clarification I was hoping for after you attacked my vote for ignoring arguments or bias, but it doesn't appear that you're willing to clarify what you see as problematic in my vote after disparaging it. Oh well.
Would love to see some more votes on this.
I’m sincerely curious. What arguments do you believe I ignored? The only other points I could find were non-sequiturs about how we should perceive other cops (specifically black cops) if we say that DC is racist for killing one black man, which was both an incorrect portrayal of your opponent’s argument and not particularly relevant to this debate. But please, explain what I missed. I’ll be glad to look over and consider any arguments that you feel I didn’t cover.
Yeah, and in a debate with more than two rounds, it's not unusual to deal in rebuttals after the first round. I generally don't like two-round debates for the reason that it doesn't give the space for arguments to develop and since it gives the last word to counter-rebuttals, there's not much room for synthesis or weighing points.
Not sure what you're expecting. Most of the interest in this debate will likely be in the outcome, though even for someone like me who is keeping up with the debate as it goes, I'm not really interested in providing running commentary. I will say that setting the character limit so high was... a choice, one that might put off other voters depending on how long the remaining rounds are.
…I’m honestly having trouble understanding the question. The relevance of a given source to the debate and, often as a result, to source points isn’t something that we as moderators would determine, so whether you’d make that call is up to you.
I'm not asking you to agree to disagree. If you don't like my RFD, so be it. I'll simply agree to your disagreement and you'll continue to be disagreeable. I'm not going to argue the point any further because you're not interested in engaging with the specifics of my RFD and instead seem more interested in attacking it with generalities. I've already talked about tabula rasa, too, though you didn't seem interested in engaging with that, either.
I wrote out very specifically where I thought he fell short. You disagree. That’s fine, I’m not interested in convincing you, and if Novice’s takeaway from all this is that I wrote all that as a long-form way of saying I was just voting based on my biases, then that’s his choice. But, for the record, just because someone is being exploited by a definition doesn’t mean they cannot exploit an obvious problem with that definitional setup. It’s a different kind of exploiting. I believe that Benjamin did enough to accomplish that.
I disagree that this debate represents something so unique or important, and more importantly, I think that the way you’re framing it as emblematic of some larger principle just isn’t accurate. I can’t speak to the specific goals of other voters, but my goal here isn’t to punish someone who utilizes a non-standard way of defining the resolution. If he had argued back the topicality successfully, I would have voted for Pro, whether I personally agreed with his framing of the debate or not. So if Novice wants to, as you put it, be a “creative ensnarer in tricky debates,” I think the votes against him should inform him that doing so comes with its own risks. You can call Benjamin a complainer, but he exploited one of those risks in a way that several of us found persuasive. You can blame that on voter bias and throw up your hands, or you can take something constructive from it and do better next time. Your choice.
Feels like you’re drifting to issues well beyond this debate and these votes… you OK?
…I honestly have no clue what you’re talking about now.
I didn’t “randomly” decide anything. I explained why that particular issue was the one that stood out to me as most pivotal in the debate. You don’t agree with that, but I don’t see you giving reasons why I’m wrong. For all you’re claiming that we’re calling you angry or toxic (or are getting ready to do so at some point), both Barney and I have tried to engage with you directly. I’m personally asking you to engage with the text of my RFD rather than generalizing about my imposing my own views on the debate.
As I said to RM, if you've got a problem with my vote, I'm willing to discuss it. I feel I have a long enough voting history on this site and DDO for my voting paradigm to be pretty clear by this point, and no, I don't purport to be perfectly tabula rasa in every decision. I also don't think that that kind of voting is always best, though I respect the view from some voters that being tabula rasa should always be the aim.
This isn't the first time we've disagreed about how judges should view a debate and I have little doubt that it will be the last. I've got my disagreements with your vote, but I respect your decision and the time you put into writing it out. That being said, I think the claim that your vote is purely tabula rasa is just straight up wrong. You are not a blank slate and you don't behave like one as a judge. None of us do. We can attempt to do so, but we all come in with biases or against specific arguments and argument types, regardless of our feelings on the debaters or the topic.
As for why I voted the way I did, I have a whole RFD written out that explains it. If you want to chalk that up to bias and assumption on my part, I guess that's your prerogative, but it's not the basis for my decision. I gave how I saw the resolution, pointed to the arguments from Con that established a similar conclusion, and explained why they were persuasive. I'm not going to get into an argument over which side did the better job on every single point because, as I said at the top, there wasn't really a debate here and it didn't end up mattering much anyway. For me, it came down to semantics: whether Con sufficiently demonstrated a problem with the way the debate was framed, and whether Pro effectively defended his interpretation of the resolution. Both could have done better in these regards, but I see Con doing enough to get his point across, and I see Pro dismissing that point without addressing it. If you've got a problem with that, then clarify it because what I've seen so far is a bunch of generalized frustration.
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>Reported Vote: Jeff_Goldblum // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 4 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
From the first round, it is clear PRO engaged in a bad-faith misrepresentation of the case they intended to argue. Headlining a debate with "creationism should be taught in schools," without any additional details provided very clearly implies the proponent will argue along the same lines as conservatives and religious fundamentalists who advocate for creationism to be taught alongside evolution.
But that's not what Pro does. Instead they attempt to spring a manner of semantics ambush in R1, arguing that learning about creationism is important to various academic disciplines, just as learning about outmoded cosmologies is important to astronomy, for example.
Con very correctly and concisely calls this out, making plain the distinction between teaching creationism and teaching about creationism. Everything that follows in the debate is peripheral to this core issue; the BoP is on Pro by default, and having built the foundation of their argument on bad-faith semantics, their argument is weak indeed.
For these reasons, I award arguments to Con. I also award Conduct, because I have no patience for Pro's clumsy and unsportsmanlike attempt to move the goalposts.
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter does explain his interpretation of the resolution, how that affects the BoP in this debate, and as a result how arguments should be evaluated. That is sufficient for awarding arguments, though the justification on conduct is not sufficient. Introducing definitions in R1 instead of in the description is not a sufficient basis for awarding conduct. Even when it comes to giving slanted definitions, awarding conduct on the basis that the voter knows the more common usage of the terminology is not sufficient, particularly as the voter attributes much of this to the intentions of Pro, going beyond what was written in this debate to try to infer what the debater was thinking.
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>Reported Vote: RationalMadman // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 6 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
See Vote Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter goes to extensive lengths to explain each of his point allocations and does so sufficiently on each.
I'm not sure what you see in Barney's RFD that would invalidate it based on the voting rules of the site, but I said as much when I removed his first vote. He stretched the rules a bit on Conduct, but his vote is clearly sufficient under the voting standards for Arguments.
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>Reported Vote: Barney // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
See Vote Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter provides more than sufficient reasoning to meet the voting standards for awarding arguments.
Noted. I understand your perspective on it better, though for the purposes of what suffices as a Kritik, I think this gets into some troublesome territory. I would personally agree with you that this kind of tactic is problematic, so this is largely an issue of how it applies to the rules of this debate and the voting standards in general.
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>Reported Vote: Barney // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 4 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
See Comment #35
>Reason for Mod Action:
While the argument points are sufficiently justified, the conduct point is insufficient. The voter appears to justify this on the basis of both the perceived bait and switch, which isn't a sufficient basis for awarding conduct, and the perception that Pro used a Kritik in their argument, which is only lightly explained. Much as it is a frustrating tactic to wait until R1 to give definitions essential to the topic, particularly if they are slanted, that doesn't make it a Kritik. Since both sides ended up trying to redefine the topic, it also makes this decision too selective.
Barney's RFD:
Pro's case is largely a semantics kritik, executed via hiding his definitions until R1.
Pro argues general information on the belief existing part of history and science, in addition to religious studies at a university level. In addition to philosophy just because. All this counts as teaching it.
Con uses an effective appeal to absurdity to challenge this notion, via pointing out that it would be the same to claim they are teaching "alchemy, flat earth theory and slavery." He then builds the distinction in teaching using math as an example showing how the word is understood in common English.
Pro does an ok defense of the math with pointing out how few students go on to become mathematicians by trade.
Semantics:
Con immediately attacks the BoP rests on the contender proclamation as disingenuous, as well as the claim that school usually refers to universities instead of the much more common k-12 environment.
Pro challenges that schools ought to include any place of learning, to include trade schools (I'm scratching my head at this one; but con misses it, so not damning).
Con catches that pro is having to use secondary definitions, and calls to pro's own sources that include dancing schools as a reference to his cherry-picked definition to dismiss it from consideration.
Pro basically calls it unfair to have his case attacked on multiple fronts here (I'm left somewhat curious what a dancer needs to know about creation myths).
Con further builds that creationism refers to an anti-science movement, linked directly to pro's own definition.
Pro oddly immediately at the start of R2 doubles down insisting that con's wrong and that his definition is binding... The definition that con agrees to, and was just leveraged against pro's case. Later in R2 pro does better by trying to separate his case from the movement, by reminding us he is not endorsing all other ideas that movement would demand.
Intelligent Design:
Pro quotes the pope, to argue that we should teach ID. Pro goes to some lengths here about how ID doesn't contradict evolution.
The big obvious problem here is that it's pre-refuted by con having already reminded us with the authority of the pope that ID goes against the branch of creationism this debate is centered on. Which pro catches and reminds of of the "rather than" part of the definition.
Pro tries to double down on ID in a repetition fallacy, which fails to challenge his chosen and locked in definition for creationism being specifically mutually exclusive.
Conduct should be obvious. While the bait and switch type debate is frowned upon, it might not be enough, but he specifically set a "Kritiks are banned" rule in the description.
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>Reported Vote: RationalMadman // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 6 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
See Comment #33
>Reason for Mod Action:
While the argument points are sufficiently justified, both the conduct and source points are insufficient. For the former, Pro points out that both sides are guilty of moving the goalposts, but claims that only Con is guilty of breaking the rule regarding Kritiks. It's unclear that the character assassination he points to is sufficient to award conduct as well, since it appears related to the design of the debate rather than functioning as a personal attack. Regarding sources, considering the number that each side uses, it is reductive to limit the analysis of Con's sources to two that he presented in R1. The use of specific source types like .org and .edu also does not suffice as a reason to award these points.
RationalMadman's RFD:
There are several correct points Con brings to the table, what Con doesn't do is capitalise on them nearly enough to win the debate.
Pro did significantly shift the goalposts from the get-go, yet Con never shifts them back.
Pro did write a near-truism in the resolution if one believes that Creationism as an idea should be taught in philosophy and religious studies, Con doesn't deal with this truism or prove why it's inherently unforgivable.
Pro did have a flaw, since they don't defend Creationism as necessarily being true but here is where the problem really set in... For Con to handle these things, he has to Kritik the goalposts/framework of Pro, Kritik the debate as being a ridiculous/absurd truism or Kritik the idea of Creationism itself as being a valid contender to be taught at schools. The debate's description, which both debaters agree to upon acceptance of the debate, explicitly bans Kritiks. This is the problem for Con.
Con's own source about Creationism says this: "In 1950 Pope Pius XII released an encyclical confirming that there is no intrinsic conflict between the theory of evolution and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, provided that Catholics still believe that humans are endowed with a soul created by God. In 1996 Pope John Paul II expanded and reiterated the church’s position, affirming evolution as "more than a hypothesis." and Pro strongly points this out in Round 2 as well as quoting a similar source on Wikipedia regarding these announcements. If Popes themselves are declaring evolution to work in tandem with Creationism, Con's point that we ought to discard Creationism from school curricula because it contradicts evolution... to back this up he points out that most Creationists consider it as valid as evolution (that isn't proof it contradicts). He did however prove that most creationists consider it as scientifically valid as evolution but yet again didn't prove that it wasn't as scientifically valid as evolution. In fact the only point he makes himself on the matter seems to be this: "creationism stands out as a weird outlier today."
That is literally his only point that wasn't just reiterating his sources on most Creationists not considering the Theory of Evolution as being superior in validity.
In contrast, Pro almost wins the entire debate in Round 2 by what is said at the end. Firstly, Pro successfully lies about moving the goalposts (Con never really explains how they were moved again, just cries about the debate being a truism and that schools are not always universities, but religion is taught even at school level so...). Then, after having already twisted Con's source against him, Pro says both can be taught (which Con's own source in Round 2 in the QUOTED SECTION THAT CON HAD AS AN EXCERPT says that most Creationists want both Creationism and Evolution being taught side by side. Then, Pro points out that Con's complaint about the motives of Creationists 'has been proven to be irrelevant because just because you believe something to be a more largely sinister movement, does not mean it is understood, taught, and accepted in this way.'
The remainder of the debate from Con is a continual character assassination of Pro, breaking of the Kritik rule to justify goalpost movement (which he doesn't move back, ever, he just keeps saying they are moved and that that is wrong but doesn't move them back) and basically a tantrum. Let me be clear, if the CoC really literally ruled out truisms, Con broke the CoC knowingly by accepting and enabling a banned debate to take place. So, really he should be begging voters to rethink that notion or they'd realise that he just accepted this for an easy win, instead of the accusation he has that Pro made an autowin Truism.
As for sources, not only did 2 of Con's sources in the very first Round of debate really contradict his case that Creationism inherently needs to rule out evolution to work but Pro consistently uses .org and .edu sources only resorting to Wikipedia for covering general overviews like the Popes' stances on Creationism.
I'll aim to get through this before the deadline.
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>Reported Vote: Phenenas // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 4 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
Pro broke their own "kritiks are banned" rule starting round 1. That alone is enough for conduct and arguments to go to Con.
>Reason for Mod Action:
While decisions may be based on the rules of a debate to award both arguments and conduct, this voter has not explained how Pro violated the stated rule within the debate and, upon inspection of his arguments, it is unclear that a violation occurred. The voter must justify the interpretation that Pro used a kritik in their argument, as it appears that Con did not accuse Pro of doing so (the closest thing I can find is Con saying that Pro defined the debate in such a way as to make it a truism, which would require a kritik on Con's part to address, i.e. he expressed his frustration that he couldn't kritik Pro's argument without violating the rule). If the voter feels that his interpretation of Pro's argument is justified, then it must be clarified what argument he sees as a kritik and why.
It's borderline at best. I don't see him doing a lot to go through Pro's arguments and what is directly responsive to his points from Con, though more concerning than that he is apparently providing some external argumentation as part of his RFD, saying that an argument about radiocarbon dating "survived their most ardent attacks" without showing how this happened in the debate. I'd personally say that it's insufficient, but I'd have to give this more thought to determine if it strays too far from the voting standards.
I’ll be voting myself sometime over the next few days.
I used a template for writing this and forgot to remove the name I had inserted last time. It's correct now.
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>Reported Vote: ADreamOfLiberty // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 6 to Pro
>Reason for Decision:
Full analysis: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7460-debate-analysis-of-nuclear-energy-is-a-better-replacement-for-fossil-fuels?page=1&post_number=1
So this debate was not won deductively by either side, therefore the points I award cannot be justified certainly. It is tempting to try and damn Con for not understanding that dams are dangerous (pun intended) but the relevance is not particularly high. Overall Con simply did not do any kind of quantitative analysis which would be required to compare different factors between wind/solar and nuclear. Pro granted nuclear was more dangerous in round 1, yet Con kept making a big deal out of it. If Con wanted more than the admission of "safer by a slim margin" he needed more than the presumption that nuclear was a lot more dangerous than Pro's references claimed it was because "devious". Con failed entirely on reliability. Pro's essential claim which he finally backed in round 3 was that it didn't matter if nuclear was slightly more dangerous than a solar panel because it was safe enough to be ignored, meanwhile nuclear reactors could actually be built fast enough and cheap enough to replace fossil fuels in a generation.
There is no absolute or agreed upon way to balance risk to human life against dollars and joules but the notion that there is no acceptable tradeoff is pure emotional appeal. No human has ever lived without some risk, anything less risky than driving a car should not be used as an objection in serious and honest debate.
It is my judgement that Pro made more important points than Con and defended them.
>Reason for Mod Action:
While the voter provides more than sufficient analysis of the arguments in the debate to warrant the allocation of those points and the source points are borderline sufficiently justified, the conduct point is not sufficiently justified. The use of a strawman fallacy, by itself, is not sufficient reason to award this point and the voter appears to recognize that. If this vote is posted again minus the conduct point, it will be sufficient under the voting standards.
Thanks, Oro. Good debate, really appreciate your debating me for your hundredth, quite the milestone!
We'll take a look at it when we get a chance.
https://www.debateart.com/debates/2564-thbt-wikipedia-is-a-more-reliable-source-for-information-than-fox-news
Alright. If Luna confirms, I'll prioritize this.
I mean… does that matter? Is voting restricted to the weeklong period for the purposes of the tournament?
Got a couple that I promised to get to before this one, but I’ll get to it.
Alright, looking forward to it. Particularly relevant these days.
This one's next on my list, guys, sorry for not getting to it during the voting period. Should have it done by the end of the weekend.
Well, regardless of the reason, I am going to read through this and give feedback. I think there's some value in having a fresh set of eyes look at a debate after some time, though it shouldn't be for the purpose of trying to prove a point.
I've got one more debate ahead of this (promised to vote on it a while back and lost track), so it'll be a bit before I can get through it, but I promise I will.
Can't recall if I started reading this back when it was in the voting period and just ran out of time or what, but I'll give it a read and a brief opinion.
No. That may sway your decision, but you are not required to vote based on that element alone.
Appreciate the vote and RFD!
I’ll aim to get a vote up on this, just remind me in a few days if I haven’t posted it.
Thanks for both the RFD and for voting!
Needless to say, glad you got it done.
Aiming to get a vote up in time.
I appreciate your attention and interest. Hopefully we are both being clear about the issues at play here, though I know we are not be providing all the details, as that might be overly exhaustive. I hope you’ll choose to vote when this ends.
I’ll try to get to this.