- Grant Sutton
- Lawrence, KS
- United States
This conversation is closed.
How does one measure debate performance? How should one measure debate performances?
I have been recently reminded of an old story about the evolution debate where Darwin, and a priest where debating the merits of his new theory, and the crowd thought the priest won the debate by asking which side of Darwin's family were the apes on.
While this in principal has very little to do with the substance of the subject of evolution, and expresses a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept, I feel the idea of winning a debate currently is focused on similarly aimed one liners.
Can we change this by changing how we evaluate debate performances, and what criteria should we use?
Modern debate teams have to be able to argue either side of a debate, does this help or hurt the process of having constructive debates that lead to further understanding?
What types of attacks should be allowed inside debate?
Any judges of debate contest what are the criteria of judging given?
Should Ted conversations enable a more interactive debate system?