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Re: out of context


On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 Pacedebate@aol.com wrote:

> I tend to prefer that the CEDA organization be as inactive as possible. Pick
> a topic, hold a national tournament and leave the rest of it to the coaches.
> Maybe the integrity of our activity requires rules on evidence. However, I
> feel like the squo handles this situation pretty much like the Evidence
> Committee suggets so I'm not sure why we need to codify it. Right now I
> support the rules against fabrication. The out of context definitions I'm not
> so sure about. To facilitate discussion I offer the following hypothetical
> situations.
> 
> Hypothetical situation #1:
> 
> John Smith writes:
> "Ukrainian proliferation is good it stops Russian expansion which would
> inevitably trigger a massive European war."
> 
> In the same article John Smith writes:
> "Proliferation is the biggest threat facing humankind. We must take every
> step possible to stop it."
> 
> If Debater X tags the first card
> 
> 'Proliferation is good.' Is that debater taking the evidence out of context
> since the authors conclusion is that prolif is bad?

Absolutely.  'X' might use ev as example,(if 'X' were honest) but would be
open to
brutal assault (assuming anyone did enough research to know what Smith was
talking about)-- to conclude argumentatively that Smith has concluded that
in general prolif is good  (a non-qualitfied tag such as example
proffered) is pretty darn near a lie.


> 
> Hypothetical situation #2
> 
> Author Jane Smith writes:
> "5 years from now we will have the technology to solve famine using OTEC."
> 
> Team X reads harms cards saying "millions are dying from famine now", the
> plan says "Implement OTEC as suggested by Jane Smith", and then they say:
> 
> "We solve. The plan saves millions of lives." then they read the Jane Smith
> evidence.
> 
> 
> Is the solvency evidence out of context? Jane Smith clearly doesn't support
> the tag since she doesn't think the plan will work for 5 years.
> 
Yes, ev is out of context, but this is more marginal--dependent entirely
upon debater honesty-- during debate does debater weigh arguments
honestly?  does debater tell critic that 'risk of da not immediate so we
must look to immediate solution with benefits five years hence'?  That
would be honest; all else is a lie.

I think debaters take advantage of lack of depth of research to use
evidence to its fullest advantage.......  a year long topic will really
help out these situations--we will hopefully start to have cross
examinations that focus on distinctions in evidence by the same author
over the course of several articles--there will be a progression of
thought on the research, instead of just on the arguments (there is a huge
distinction known only to researchers)--
anyway I think a year long topic will weed out the misuse of evidence as
noted above--I mean stuff like this would not happen if teams thought
other teams or judges knew this stuff-"be verry quiet--we're hunting wabbit"

tony penders; seattle university




> Tim Mahoney, Pace U.
References:
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