I'm not sure what winning actually means in the context of EvC. Yes it is the case that one side or the other does a better job of making its points than the other. But given that there are no referees, and that the alternatives seem to be self-declaration and peer voting. I don't think winning is really the point.
I think Cats Eye makes an excellent point. Debates that educate are the best debates. Everybody wins.
I am sure of is that a series of posts where one or both sides do not acknowledge or address the arguments of others in a serious fashion cannot have a winner. Such an exchange is not a debate at all.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Seems to me if its clear that certain things that require ancient dates couldn't possibly be true, we are on our way to throwing out all those ancient dates on the basis of the actual evidence. -- Faith
Some of us are worried about just how much damage he will do in his last couple of weeks as president, to make it easier for the NY Times and Washington post to try to destroy Trump's presidency. -- marc9000
™ Version 4.2
