Ross digresses...

[Cori Dauber]

Oh yes, by all means, lets train people to more effectively destroy
themselves by staying up all night, eating poorly, and generally strapping
for the most unbalanced lifestyle possible. What is this the Olympics? You
cant
condition yourself to need less sleep or time off, and it aint the years
its the mileage -- this is cumulative. I realize you're making that
argument tongue-in-cheek, but come on . . .

On Thu, 6 Nov 1997, Joel David Rollins wrote:

> oh Puh-leeez,
>
> this is not about debaters being introspective about their conservative or
> liberal tendencies.  it should be about what is best for the debate
> community.  i've done my introspection, i've "rethought", so to speak, so
> let's look at why liberals might be a little reticent about moving to six
> rounds.
>
> i suggest that the six round format is a conservative proposal based in a
> nostalgic rhetoric. its primary imagery is pastoral,  harkening to some
> golden day of debate when coaches and debaters didn't get tired and all was
> right with the world.
>
> it is also a proposal that will HURT the majority of debaters by giving
> them less experience while benefitting only an elite few who are fortunate
> enough to be debating in late elims.  i suggest that moving to six rounds
> is typical of many conservative proposals--golden age rhetoric woven into
> policies that help the already privileged.  it will cost poorer programs
> like ours MORE money to get the same amount of rounds.  as such, it is a
> quitessentially regressive conservative proposal.
>
> who is hurt by six rounds?  the majority of debaters attending a tournament
> who don't get the extra rounds two rounds, the teams at the margins of a
> first round who don't get the powered rounds to debate quality teams with
> good judges in those critical rounds 7 and 8.
>
> duck says there is no event like this that makes it an endurance contest.
> how about the law or graduate school?   this, i think, is a good argument
> for eight rounds and five elims if entries warrant.  endurance makes debate
> special: what other activity can provide training for late nights at the
> law firm, getting up the next morning and trying the case?  what other
> activity can train people to stay sharp even when they don't want to?  what
> other activity prepares one for the rigors of graduate school or writing a
> dissertation  or any other activity where pushing  mental capabilities to
> the limit is key?
>
>
> for my part, six round were just as stressful because of the additional
> arbitrariness imposed by the format.   each win was critical, points were
> even moreso, and if you were unfortunate enough to get pulled up there was
> almost no chance for the power-match to correct.  as others have commented,
> wins are less arbitrary than points, and one bad pull-up can knock you out
> of the tournament.
>
> i was just as tired after six rounds--perhaps because of down time and no
> chance for the adrenaline to stabilize.  i don't know.  i do admit, i liked
> rounds starting at nine in the morning.  that was nice.  but this was more
> than made up for by the additional stress i encountered by worrying about
> every decision.
>
> bottom line:
> debate is good, we can afford more debating with eight rounds.    six
> rounds benefits only an elite few and imposes a regressive penalty on
> poorer programs.
>
> joel
>

>From  Fri Nov  7 18:11:18 1997
Message-Id: <FRI.7.NOV.1997.181118.0500.>
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 18:11:18 -0500
Reply-To: dhn2 at COLUMBIA.EDU
To: Team Topic Debating in America <EDEBATE at LIST.UVM.EDU>
From: Daniel Hugh Nexon <dhn2 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: losing your religion
Comments: To: Alan Dove <ad52 at columbia.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.95L.971107132315.18044A-100000 at merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Fri, 7 Nov 1997, Alan Dove wrote:

> On Thu, 6 Nov 1997, Daniel Hugh Nexon wrote:
>
> > Unfortunately, Karl Popper was simply wrong about the relationship between
> > science and truth. His arguments come down to a Platonist understanding of
> > something called "science," which a priori admits or doesn't admit actual
> > scientific practice as science based upon his philosophical ideal. Without
>
> Which was precisely what he set out to do, as I understand it.

Sort of; but this creates the problem that Popperian post-postivism
begins from a (sorry) foundationless normative statement (or, at least one
not subject to the same epistemological conditions it postulates)--so, why
should we accept it at all?

  Not
> everything that wears a white coat and spews jargon is science, and even
> some branches of research which seem scientific in their approach are not
> nearly as objective as some practitioners would have you believe.

I agree, but this is trivial.

  Popper,
> though, was a physicist, so he tends to view the scientific enterprise as
> one which involves hypotheses which are either true or not true.

Sure, which is why, perhaps, we should pay more attention to sociologists
of science (at least when they have some idea what they're talking about).

 Had he
> been an anthropologist, he might never have engaged in this debate.
> "Actual scientific practice" ranges from mathematics to sociology,
> depending on whom you ask, and the degree of intersubjective verifiability
> one can obtain definitely varies from one field to another.

I'm still not convinced that "intersubjective verifiability" obtains at
*all* outside of the social production of knowledge.

 If we rigidly
> exclude all fields which do not provide trans-subjective "truth," we do
> see actual practice lining up with Popper's ideal.

I really don't think so, in my limited readings on the subject. To wit:
trans-subjective truth is always bounded by the rules of the game, and
cannot be tran-subjective outside of them.

 This is not a popular
> choice among academics, because it exacerbates the perceived division
> between "hard" and "soft" sciences.

Heh.
Regards, Dan | Columbia Political Science | www.columbia.edu/~dhn2
"Surely here is an opportunity to get rid of that great stick of a
character _Homo economicus_ and to replace him with someone real, like
Madame Bovary." -Donald McCloskey, _The Rhetoric of Economics_