Please feel free to analyze, critique, and comment on the Formal Debate between marc9000 and electrolyte, which is found here.

As always, active participants of the debate (opponents, judges, and moderator) are not allowed to post to this thread until the debate has been decided by all three judges, and their rulings have been posted.

Thank you for your interest in this debate. Your input is appreciated.

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- Which is worse--ignorance or apathy? For my part, I don't know and I don't care. -

Both posts are very interesting reads. My judgement thus far is that while I think there's a debate along these lines that Marc could win, I don't think this one is it. He's given Electrolyte too big a target and too many vantage points to shoot from.

I tend to agree, I think the result is pretty much a foregone conclusion, just based on the resolution and amount of ground that can be covered.

I'm sure it will continue to be an interesting debate though, I'm looking forward to Marc's next post.

Waxy

I gotta ask,

Does anyone actually care?

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Signs of poor skill: unilaterally redefining words and phrases to suit one's argument.

No surprise.

The judges pretty much summed up my thoughts as well.

Marc presented an admirable effort, but from the beginning, based on the resolution he agreed to, he really had no chance. That being said, I'm not sure there's any way to word the resolution that wouldn't result in the same outcome.

Waxy

Some comments not truncated by word limits:

Thanks again to marc, billsco, JP, Steeeeve, unkerpaulie, and E Mutz.

Hat tip to marc for his performance. marc, you made this debate a lot more challenging and seemingly closer than I originally thought it would be. As some of our judges pointed out, there was much discussion about points that some of us regarded as peripheral to the actual topic. While I'd love to say that my reason for continuing upon these peripheral points was to distract you from the main topic, that would be stretching the truth: your continued hammering of some of these points made me feel it necessary to defend my position against them, lest they convince any of the judges.

I'd feel a little better if I could take the negatives that the judges pointed out and counter them all. The fact is that I can't.

Steeeeve expressed disappointment at my tone at certain points in this debate. I agree that we should expect formal debators to be held to a higher standard, and I'll acknowledge that my actions might not have met the highest standards. Steeeeve took issue in particular with my reference to marc's "fantasy world" where any quote with no support is supposed to be given credence.
We'll recap: First, marc explicitly promised to present fact right after presenting a bogus quote from Henry. I pointed out in one single clause that the quote was a fake and moved on. It was marc who then pushed the argument that the argument is in dispute even though it fails to meet any reputable criterion of reliability. If an opponent swearing to present truth, being called on forwarding something bogus, then attempting to equivocate, isn't an invitation for a swift kick to the ass, I don't know what is.

unkerpaulie also expressed displeasure with my "antagonism" instead of "debating with reasoning and evidence." Frankly, I feel that I included a boatload of the latter, with the former coming in merely because marc often hand-waved away said reasoning and evidence in favor of mere assertion to the contrary.

Steeeeve expressed his surprise at the list at the tripod page. I pointed out something that I'm not sure Steeeeve remembers: the points are assigned in a rather weird way. For example, somebody who was merely elected to a House seat in 1798 and kept his seat for the full term gets as many points as somebody who was actually at the Constitutional Convention, had input, and signed the Constitution.

Each of the judges felt that criterion #2 played a significant part in this debate, and I can't say I disagree in the slightest. In fact, I agree that this criterion -- at least as I defended it in the debate -- is overreaching. While I very much do believe that generic claims are worthless for establishing Christian origin or a necessary Christian link, one cannot say that a Christian ideal absolutely cannot overlap with a non-Christian ideal. Although I feel that many of the examples from the debate could be defended according to my point of view, I also feel that I was fortunate that marc did not present a convincing counterargument to this effect. marc did a good job of making criterion #2 such an issue in the first place by taking the attention away from what I felt was a damning opening post in which I tried to lay out examples that were indefensible for his position regardless of the technicalities of the internal components.

Another weakness that the judges mentioned was the lack of distinction between "Christian" and "Biblical." However, as marc allegedly wanted to avoid denominational beliefs, the only objective source is the Bible. This is a consequence of the nature of Christianity. Without some defined standard, marc can argue that Calvinism is the shining example of Christianity, and I can argue that Fred Phelps has the only accurate representation. Such a debate becomes absolutely, completely, totally fruitless.

These last two points lead me back to the proposal that I introduced many months ago to eliminate the equivocation. unkerpaulie gave marc kudos for "refining his position throughout the debate," which I saw simply as changing his argument as his points were countered. Perhaps it is in the affirmant's best interests to have a back door through which to escape, but the last two debates I've paid much attention to here have each turned into an argument about what the damn resolution means instead of a debate about whether the resolution is true. There should be no question what the resolution means by the time the debate starts. One will note that I laid out my position in my opening post, including the slam dunk counterexamples, and the debate was done by any clear interpretation of the scope. Only because of the wishy-washiness of the resolution was there much reason to continue. Frankly, I would never have accepted such a non-descript resolution had it not been for marc's addition of the word "all" to the resolution. And in hindsight, even after a decision in my favor, I regret doing even that.

And while I'm on my soapbox, I'd like to make a point about a 5/4 structure. I have a friend who teaches philosophy and has participated in many debates, both online and in person at various venues around the country. When he asked me how many posts each of us got, and I told him that it was 5/4, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. I agree that the affirmant has the tougher task, but the affirmant picks the resolution, and the affirmant sets the tone with the opening post, which puts the negative side on defense from the get-go. That is the extent of the affirmant's "reward" in every single debate format I've seen except here; here, the affirmant gets a freebie at the end.

All the same, though, this debate was a great and educational experience, not to mention a respectable mental challenge thanks to marc's argumentation. These characteristics make me more amenable to these not-so-ideal factors of debates here, such that a part of me hopes I can be a part of one again.

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

The 5/4 structure originated with our first 4 Forums debate guru, DSADevil. His thoughts were that this structure is necessary to level the playing field. "Trust me on this," were his lasting words found somewhere in the forum. And so we've trusted him to the point where that structure has become SOP here, although the reasoning behind it is lost.

However, the affirmant doesn't always pick the resolution; in your case there was back and forth until mutual agreement was reached. Further, the affirmant usually has used his final post to recap his position, rarely offering anything new which goes unchallenged, naturally. At least that is how the freebie in theory has worked and has become accepted here.

I'm very open to discussions on different structures which will make the debating better.

Incidentally, I'm unable to update the win/loss rankings, and also the match results which we keep a record of in the Formal Debate Room. It may be that the thread and posts are simply too old to allow editing any longer. I'm going to check with Admin before attempting a fix of my own. I only wanted to let you and readers know so that you don't think I've been remiss in recording the data.


Thanks for a good debate. It's a nice addition to the Formal Debate Room. I'd be happy to moderate another one for you and your future opponent.

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- Which is worse--ignorance or apathy? For my part, I don't know and I don't care. -

It didn't influence my decision any, I just found it neat and thought I'd share that. I didn't put much stock in sites not known to be credible.

Just thought I'd clear that up.

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Actually, from what I can tell, there seems to be a lot of research going into many pages on that site. I just was really surprised when I saw the point assignment values. It would be neat if the page had the tallies that went into the point totals. Not only are the currently assigned values suspect, but they're slanted: because Presidents essentially retire after their presidency, the ones with enough pull to be elected one of the first Presidents stopped racking up points, which minor players kept adding to their totals in Congress and state legislatures.

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

I wish DSADevil were still here.

I think his "trust me on this" has been well proven. Affirmatives seldom win - there have only been four so far, out of 15 debates.

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