How do you know who WON a debate?

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Angel

How do you know who WON a debate?

Post #1

Post by Angel »

On another thread (here), cholland brought up the need to consilidate some threads since threads are created with the same topic that has already been debated time and time again. My only problem along these lines has been that there's a lack in seeing who wins these debates so that may be one reason why they keep going and going on and on just to be recreated in a new thread a week or so later.

Being able to measure who wins debates in the regular threads may be difficult since you have many different people debating but this should be fairly easy to do in the head-to-head debate section esp. when the number of posts in the debate is restricted to a specified number agreed upon by the two debaters beforehand. If debating is like a sport or even like chess, then what's the point in debating when there's never going to be a winner? I certainly don't have a perfect way to measure but we can at least do a poll on public opinion which would show who people think won the debate or if it was more like a tie, etc.

That's my suggestion. Perhaps after each debate is done, put up a poll where all can vote on who won, loss, or if it was a tie. We can even mention some guidelines to what would constitute winning a debate so that way people can consider that and understand better what to look for.

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Nickman
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Post #2

Post by Nickman »

You don't. You just wait for it to be over. Others later will continue to debate over the same subject. The only time the debate is won is when time does what it does best and separates fact from fiction.

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Nilloc James
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Post #3

Post by Nilloc James »

Winning a debate ia subjective - is it who proved their case or spoke better? Is it who weaved better word games or had better evidence.

Unless members of a head to head ask others for their assesment I fear such a feature would be a popularity contest and not contribute to the forum.

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Post #4

Post by McCulloch »

The only meaningful way to assess whether a debate has been won is to compare the views of a varied group on the question being debated before and after the debate. If more people have moved from Pro to neutral, neutral to Con or Pro to Con than moved the other way, then the Con side has won.
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John

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Nilloc James
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Post #5

Post by Nilloc James »

Still having convinced people you are right does not equal proving you were right. Does winning a debate unethically mean you actually won?

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Fuzzy Dunlop
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Re: How do you know who WON a debate?

Post #6

Post by Fuzzy Dunlop »

Angel wrote: On another thread (here), cholland brought up the need to consilidate some threads since threads are created with the same topic that has already been debated time and time again. My only problem along these lines has been that there's a lack in seeing who wins these debates so that may be one reason why they keep going and going on and on just to be recreated in a new thread a week or so later.
FWIW I would oppose such consolidation. The purpose of this forum is debate. New people come here all the time, and they are going to want to debate the popular topics. Let them have the debate themselves anew instead of directing them to read a sticky where other people have already debated. That's the difference between a forum and a book.

Boggles my mind when people complain that a topic has been done before. If you're bored of a topic don't read it, join or start a topic that you're interested in. As long as people are raised to believe in loving gods they are going to run into the problem of evil, and as I see it the purpose of a forum like this is to let them ask questions and debate the issue themselves. A topic that is old news to you can very well be new and interesting for others.
Angel wrote:That's my suggestion. Perhaps after each debate is done, put up a poll where all can vote on who won, loss, or if it was a tie. We can even mention some guidelines to what would constitute winning a debate so that way people can consider that and understand better what to look for.
Strongly oppose. What makes this forum so great is that it bans cheerleading (or at least confines cheerleading to the "Member Praise Gift Program" sticky where it doesn't overly intrude on the discussions). Debates should be exchanges of ideas and arguments that stand or fall on their own merits in the eyes of each individual reader. Don't turn it into a popularity contest, there's plenty of other forums for that.

Angel

Re: How do you know who WON a debate?

Post #7

Post by Angel »

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:
Angel wrote: On another thread (here), cholland brought up the need to consilidate some threads since threads are created with the same topic that has already been debated time and time again...
FWIW I would oppose such consolidation. The purpose of this forum is debate. New people come here all the time, and they are going to want to debate the popular topics. Let them have the debate themselves anew instead of directing them to read a sticky where other people have already debated. That's the difference between a forum and a book.

Boggles my mind when people complain that a topic has been done before. If you're bored of a topic don't read it, join or start a topic that you're interested in. As long as people are raised to believe in loving gods they are going to run into the problem of evil, and as I see it the purpose of a forum like this is to let them ask questions and debate the issue themselves. A topic that is old news to you can very well be new and interesting for others.
I agree with you here. Some times I find myself debating the same position over and over again with an unending flow of new people asking the same thing. My practice to handle this is to copy the main points behind my post to MicroSoft Word and then copy and paste them here so I don't have to retype them all over again. So in effect I can respond to every objection that has been covered in a previous debate by copying and pasting from my old debates but then I'll respond with a new point if there's a NEW objection.
Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:
Angel wrote:That's my suggestion. Perhaps after each debate is done, put up a poll where all can vote on who won, loss, or if it was a tie. We can even mention some guidelines to what would constitute winning a debate so that way people can consider that and understand better what to look for.
Strongly oppose. What makes this forum so great is that it bans cheerleading (or at least confines cheerleading to the "Member Praise Gift Program" sticky where it doesn't overly intrude on the discussions). Debates should be exchanges of ideas and arguments that stand or fall on their own merits in the eyes of each individual reader. Don't turn it into a popularity contest, there's plenty of other forums for that.
The thing is without some input ABOUT the debate/debaters then you won't know what impact you're having other than what YOU think of yourself. Having others involved in voting on a debate/debaters may not necessarily be an objective measure of who wins a debate but to me the altnerative does not have to be doing nothing either. Perhaps it would help if people can keep the votes in a reasonable perspective by looking at them as what the general public thinks on your views or something similar. Or in fact, if you restrict the voting to a certain group of qualified judges then you'll at least do better to getting a more reasonable judgement of who wins a debate. You can also reduce voter fraud (people making new account names just to vote twice or more for someone) by restricting the voter to select members.

I also believe this voting system would workout mostly in one-on-one debate format so you're only voting for 1 or 2 positions - those of the 2 debaters only. We already have voting on the forum already, but it's not tailored for a winner except for the voting that's done annually and it seems McColluch always wins.

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Post #8

Post by ndf8th »

My experience is that some Christians win
when they lose a debate. The more they lose
the more they win supporters due to they want
to take care of the good believer in Christ.

I trust that is why people like William Craig goes to University
and lose debates because they win supporters among the luke
warm potential Christians that want to emotionally come to rescue
when the nasty atheists have done their logical trix.

Christians to me are emotional and not logical persons.
They have faith in God not faith in the logic of philosophy.

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Post #9

Post by playhavock »

In informal logic you win on a technocal level if you point out more logical flaws and your oppenent does not fix them, and/or if you make points that your oppenent never responds to.

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Post #10

Post by Goat »

I think too much emphasis is made on 'winning' or 'losing'. If you are challenged, and had to learn to express your thoughts better, or in a way that is more easily understood by others, you won. If you learned something, you won. If other people learned something you won. If you enjoyed yourself, you won.

That's good enough for me.
“What do you think science is? There is nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. So which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?�

Steven Novella

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