The End Of High School Debate?

[Revoltingest]

An interesting article in the news....

At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed

At national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue ‘capitalism can reduce poverty’ or ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ will lose—no questions asked.

www.thefp.com

If the author is accurate, judges are increasingly
using criteria to award wins & losses based upon
race, political affiliation, & other personal
preferences & prejudices.

 

[esmith]

Time for the wood shed!

 

[Revoltingest]

Time for the wood shed!

Or an alternative organization dedicated to
vigorous debate without such prejudices.

 

[esmith]

Or an alternative organization dedicated to
vigorous debate without such prejudices.

Is that even possible in today's society?

 

[Left Coast]

An interesting article in the news....

At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed

At national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue ‘capitalism can reduce poverty’ or ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ will lose—no questions asked.

www.thefp.com

If the author is accurate, judges are increasingly
using criteria to award wins & losses based upon
race, political affiliation, & other personal
preferences & prejudices.

Disappointing. It's wild that the judges who were highlighted don't even pretend to attempt objectivity in judging. Does not bode well for future generations' ability to think critically.

 

[Revoltingest]

Is that even possible in today's society?

Just difficult.

 

[Twilight Hue]

An interesting article in the news....

At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed

At national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue ‘capitalism can reduce poverty’ or ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ will lose—no questions asked.

www.thefp.com

If the author is accurate, judges are increasingly
using criteria to award wins & losses based upon
race, political affiliation, & other personal
preferences & prejudices.

Of course. The People's School is supposed to have only their opinion, one school, one voice.

Others will be punished.

.

 

[Revoltingest]

Of course. The People's School is supposed to have only their opinion, one school, one voice.

Others will be punished.

.

The problem appears to be individual
judges, & a program that allows them
to use bigoted criteria.

 

[Stevicus]

An interesting article in the news....

At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed

At national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue ‘capitalism can reduce poverty’ or ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ will lose—no questions asked.

www.thefp.com

If the author is accurate, judges are increasingly
using criteria to award wins & losses based upon
race, political affiliation, & other personal
preferences & prejudices.

So, they can't even debate about disallowing debate?

 

[Twilight Hue]

The problem appears to be individual
judges, & a program that allows them
to use bigoted criteria.

I see it as the classic power trip of seeing it my way, or I'll get rid of your opinions.

These people clearly dont tolerate debates in the first place. They only want fixed static subjects that favor a selected side.

Nice for a People's School.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

The only sensible way to really adjudicate a debate is to have an audience (of significant numbers, at least in the hundreds), and take a poll of the audience at both the beginning and end of the debate as to which side of the issue each audience member stands on. Thus, if the yeas are 301 to 409 nays at the beginning of the debate, and 305 to 405 at the end, the yeas won -- because they turned 4 audience members to their side.

 

[Audie]

An interesting article in the news....

At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed

At national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue ‘capitalism can reduce poverty’ or ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ will lose—no questions asked.

www.thefp.com

If the author is accurate, judges are increasingly
using criteria to award wins & losses based upon
race, political affiliation, & other personal
preferences & prejudices.

USSR?

 

[Revoltingest]

USSR?

Liberals.

 

[Debater Slayer]

An interesting article in the news....

At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed

At national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue ‘capitalism can reduce poverty’ or ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ will lose—no questions asked.

www.thefp.com

If the author is accurate, judges are increasingly
using criteria to award wins & losses based upon
race, political affiliation, & other personal
preferences & prejudices.

The website has quite a few biased articles, so I can't trust that its reporting is credible or based on evidence. The only other sources I found running the story are all highly biased ones with dubious reliability ratings per Ad Fontes Media:

Former high school debater left shocked by biased judges: 'Conform or fail'

Former high school debaters Lawence Joseph and James Fishback joined "America's Newsroom" to explain how biased judges are negatively impacting competitive student debates.

www.foxnews.com

Woke judges say there are topics high school kids CAN’T debate

A high school debate team in Broward County, Florida, taught to challenge ideas, question assumptions and think outside the box.

nypost.com

Critics say US school debate in peril as ‘woke’ judges only approve Left-wing views

Students and debating coaches say high schools are seeing ‘decline’ in debating after judges’ criteria have become riddled with ideology

www.telegraph.co.uk

That said, if it is true that some judges are judging debate methods based on the beliefs being expressed rather than the logical and rhetorical criteria of debate, I think they should be told to abide by debate standards or be replaced.

I have to say, though, that part of me wonders how common such debates were or how successful they were in teaching people critical thinking even before the current polarization considering that significant numbers of American voters fell for various kinds of disastrous, false, and highly consequential propaganda in previous decades.

The article makes it sound like there was a bygone era of debate competitions that successfully taught people critical thinking. Was that really the case, if we look at the reality of millions of voters' choices from, say, the '60s all the way to the early 2000s and even now, when emotional rhetoric, tribalism, science denial, and baseless propaganda have been heavily affecting large sections of American politics to an extent that most other developed countries are not experiencing?

 

[Debater Slayer]

The only sensible way to really adjudicate a debate is to have an audience (of significant numbers, at least in the hundreds), and take a poll of the audience at both the beginning and end of the debate as to which side of the issue each audience member stands on. Thus, if the yeas are 301 to 409 nays at the beginning of the debate, and 305 to 405 at the end, the yeas won -- because they turned 4 audience members to their side.

I don't think that would be a reliable or fair measure of debate skill, if said skill were to be judged based on the soundness of logical reasoning and adherence to evidence. Sound logical reasoning and factual accuracy are not synonymous with persuasion, and depending on the various pre-existent beliefs that the audience may have, sound logic and evidence may sometimes actually hinder someone's ability to persuade an audience of a specific viewpoint if the audience is more receptive to another viewpoint that is partially or completely based on unevidenced assumptions or unsound logic.

Imagine how persuasive a debater would be if they cited historical facts about communism to a crowd including a large mumber of ardent Marxists-Leninists versus a debater who appealed to their beliefs and fervor, or how an evolutionary biologist would perform against a priest in front of an audience including many hardline evangelicals.

Sometimes the speaker who "wins" more people over to their side is not the one with the best logic or evidence. Given human nature, sometimes the more persuasive speakers have poor logic or little to no evidence but use emotional appeals, tribalism, fearmongering, and demagoguery, among other tactics that don't prioritize evidence and sound logic.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I don't think that would be a reliable or fair measure of debate skill, if said skill were to be judged based on the soundness of logical reasoning and adherence to evidence. Sound logical reasoning and factual accuracy are not synonymous with persuasion, and depending on the various pre-existent beliefs that the audience may have, sound logic and evidence may sometimes actually hinder someone's ability to persuade an audience of a specific viewpoint if the audience is more receptive to another viewpoint that is partially or completely based on unevidenced assumptions or unsound logic.

Imagine how persuasive a debater would be if they cited historical facts about communism to a crowd including a large mumber of ardent Marxists-Leninists versus a debater who appealed to their beliefs and fervor, or how an evolutionary biologist would perform against a priest in front of an audience including many hardline evangelicals.

Sometimes the speaker who "wins" more people over to their side is not the one with the best logic or evidence. Given human nature, sometimes the more persuasive speakers have poor logic or little to no evidence but use emotional appeals, tribalism, fearmongering, and demagoguery, among other tactics that don't prioritize evidence and sound logic.

Well, that's part of the reason that I stipulated the audience must be large enough. When you measure the audience reaction to the question before the debate, you are essentially measuring the overall bias of the room. Not everyone, but a significant enough number, is really susceptible to rational argument, logic and reason. Thus, if one side or the other can overcome the original bias of part of the audience, we can make a reasonable presumption that they did so using their arguments, for the simple reason that most of us don't change our minds easily.

Let me propose an example -- to simplistic but it may serve as instructive. Let's take a debate about "the existence of the Abrahamic God." Let's also assume that this is at a university, somewhere in America. The audience, being mostly students and faculty we can assume, will certainly know on which side they stand before the debate begins. A passionate speaker on the Yea side (for the existence of God), is unlikely to convince atheists with emotion. But what if he actually found an argument that could convince a few (look no further than the many such debates right here on RF)? Same thing, the Nay side atheist is really unlikely, no matter how passionate his exposition, to convince a believer to give up their belief -- unless she found some really convincing argument. It's for that reason that I suggested that the "winning side" would probably win by quite a small margin.

 

[Watchmen]

An interesting article in the news....

At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed

At national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue ‘capitalism can reduce poverty’ or ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ will lose—no questions asked.

www.thefp.com

If the author is accurate, judges are increasingly
using criteria to award wins & losses based upon
race, political affiliation, & other personal
preferences & prejudices.

So it’s become like the best in show dog show.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I actually think that when weighing debaters, the crowd might be prone to not only be influenced by who has the better arguments, but who was the better arguer.

So, if you want to test who had the better arguments, @Evangelicalhumanist 's ideas could work assuming people are less likely to change their mind based only on who was the better arguer.

 

[icehorse]

Liberals.

far-left liberals. i will not cede the general term to them

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I actually think that when weighing debaters, the crowd might be prone to not only be influenced by who has the better arguments, but who was the better arguer.

So, if you want to test who had the better arguments, @Evangelicalhumanist 's ideas could work assuming people are less likely to change their mind based only on who was the better arguer.

Well, there @Debater Slayer has a point, because one facet of human nature is that we will tend (if we're unsure) to listen to those we instinctively like. And it is true that some people are good at being liked, while others (think Ron DeSantis) are not so much.