Persuasive Speech Topic

Hello again.I have a persuasive speech that I must perform in roughly one month, but I must choose my topic by Tuesday. The biggest problem I have is that there are far too many topics I would like to talk about, but only one I can eventually approach, nourish to fruition. Also, the speech is only, at most, 8 minutes long.I guess my goal is to hear out as many people that wish to contribute their opinion. Anything and everything would be greatly appreciated from the EVC family.Furthermore, I did see someone else recently start a thread, asking for aid in choosing a speech topic. I hope their thread hasn't run the EVC well of patience, advice, and counsel dry.Lastly, here are a few of the topics of interest that I have; what do you think of some of these? are there any others that itch your intrigue?Global warming- what can be done about it?
Animal rights (Yes, this is too general, perhaps a few suggestions? no to fur coats, possibly?)
Rehabilitation: why prison doesn't work
Should schools be allowed to teach creationism alongside evolution as part of the science curriculum? -Very interested in this one, but may be too controversial. I'll check up on this one and respond about it shortly-
A topic based on my stance against the Patriot Act.
Persuade my audience to adopt the use of renewable energy.
Persuade...that the Iraq war was not justified.Much obliged,
Brian

I did a speech of this duration for an English class last year.I will grab the PowePoint off my flash and drive it back up onto the web for you if you would like some images already dephantomized.I used Dylan's song "Man gave name to all the animals" to point out the nature of naming in biology(also "cell", "axon" etc) and made my point on the rather poor state of denoting supramolecular entities.I suggested that high school students learn to search the web and try to give names that could be based on ID concepts(IDers like to use IC where proteins have similar domains etc). The names might serve as symbols for evolutionists who do metadiscussions of the possibly significant liguistics developed by 9th graders later. Evolutionist names are lacking in much creativity or plausibly connotable content. Students may even do better than what is already on-line!!This doesnt mean that ID is good for schools across the board but using the religously biased glasses one may be able to sow seeds that spring where only maritan machines have so far landed. I based legal part of the talk on Cornell already teaching on the subject of ID and a bill in the NY Legislature (not passed)to fund such curricula.

Hello,I've actually just been assigned a research essay for my only english class; it's due in a few weeks. I've been tossing around ideas for a topic and I was also considering researching global warming, but from more of a "exactly how f*cked are we?" perspective. If anybody out there has some interesting angles to tackle this one from, I'd love to hear them. Also, if I find any particularily interesting articles or journals I'll be sure to send you a link.

Interesting choice, but to be perfectly honest, I don't think I'm feeling this one.I have only but a handful of minutes-eight minutes, tops- to speak. The speech must conform to Monroe's Motivated Sequence. It would seem a daunting task to mold your topic to Monroe's MS.Thank you for responding, BM.By the way, how successful was your speech?

Two possible angles:1) The melting ice, glaciers, and snow will be a burden on the world's fresh water supply.2) The rise in ocean levels will expand the equatorial environment: tropical, warm, humid weather, mosquitos and tropical diseases- such as malaria- will be more prevalent in areas that have not been exposed to them. Thank you. And thanks for your reply.

Perhaps a look at what can be done to slow/stop/reverse global warming may seem more fresh. I've always wondered if policies such as the kyoto accord can actually have an observable effect on the environment without entirely crushing the economy.

For now, very little. Much of the developed countries are developed because we are consuming so much damn energy, and the biggest source of this energy is fossil fuel. Unless the rich and fat people of the first world countries want to give up our luxery, there is little we can do about global warming (I'm talking about the supposed manmade cause of course).On the other hand, just about everything you do contributes to global warming. Even burning leaves contribute to global warming. I would argue that animal do not have rights, but they do have interests. If you want to pursue this further, let me know and I'll explain the difference between rights and interests. If you mean our current form of prison system, then yes I agree that it doesn't work to the extend that we should aim for. However, beside the prison system, noone has ever been able to propose an alternate justice system that meets both the ideals we bleeding heart liberals seek and the realistic/practical standards society could impose. The question is does the current creationist model meet the scientific standards that we require of other theories? I would argue that the patriot act is a step toward the level of authoritarianism that a democracy such as this country should never get to. While it is only a small step, it is a step nonetheless. Good luck with this one. Simply put, just about every renewable source of energy we know of requires significantly more input energy than what we get from the output. The fact is at our current level of technology we simply don't have what it takes to transform our economy on such a drastic scale.On the good side, the Great and Powerful Empire of Iceland recently decided to convert entirely its economy to hydrogen based. In a few years, we will either see this imperialistic society conquer the world with its hydrogen powered warships and tanks or see the collapse of this empire and the beheading of the Emperor by the then impoverished people of Iceland. You're going to need a room full of pinko commies to pass off your argument there. Simply put, this is an issue that, unless one has been living under a rock, one has already made up one's mind and that no amount of persuasion would ever change one's mind. Look at it this way. If we've ran out of patience just because of that one thread you mentioned, we'd be telling every creationist and IDist to piss off and go to hell everytime one shows up. Edited by Tazmanian Devil, : No reason given.

I agree.As a side note, I guess, I know of two more vocal, public educators of global warming. Perhaps they could be of service for your assignment?James Hanson- Dr. James E. HansenandMichael Oppenheimer- http://www.environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagID=951Underneath his photo is labeled "Area of Expertise- Global warming".
Click on Global Warming and it will take you to this site:We're sorry, that page is not available | Environmental Defense FundI hope this helps.

I don't know, Taz, but this statement looks to have the guise of black and white thinking.It also depends on what exactly is meant by "luxury".Furthermore, I think it's the "little" things that we as individuals can do that will make for a less severe global climate change. Small improvements aggregated can make for substantial change; such as changing from incandescent to fluorescent lighting, recycling, reusing, and reducing waste output, using fuel-efficient transportation, buying energy star-labeled appliances, and the like. My fault, Taz, I should have been more specific. How about the current prison system as is imposed on drug offenders? Instead of state and federal funds being used to incarcerate drug offenders, I would suggest more funds be diverted to the education and rehabilitation of drug abusers. Suggestions? Good point. If I were leaning towards any of the following topics that I have suggested, it would probably be this one, but every and all of the topics that I have suggested strike an interest in me.Thanks for responding, by the way.P.S. I like the new avatar.

You are right. I used TWO speeches to get that across.They are available at
http://aexion.org/product.aspx
under the terms:
ID and ID policy (.ppt)All one really needs to do in such a speech is to have students become “acquainted” with something like the following:
F Problems of naming proteins
1) There are purely biological problems
a)length
b)multiple names/conventions
2) learn how to down load
a)pictures
b)sequences
3) how to search for proteins
4)practice giving names
a)reflecting function
b)putative design
c)form
This can be done in 8 minutes.
The whole outline is on
http://aexion.org/product.aspx
As ” IDpolicy.doc’
The idea is to introduce students to the “purpose” of Russell here highlighted WITHOUT having to bring up a “feeling for the variable”.

quote:

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Logic and Knowledge 1968 Bertrand Russell

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Sorry if naming just does not have the “feel” that you are looking for.My speeches all went well , 98 or 100%The first one I did was on the population problem.The power point for that ison http://aexion.org/product.aspx
under, ”Presentation12.ppt’

Let me be more specific. People in the US of A consume the most crap in the world. We buy things that we don't need, and we throw away things that we never needed in the first place. The question is how were these things made? The answer is these things were made by consuming fossil fuel.The biggest contributer to global warming is modern industry. Country wise, the USA is the biggest contributer of global warming followed very closely by China. Like I said, we as individuals can't really do much until we drastically change policies on an economic level and force the industries to stop consuming so much goddamn fossil fuel.But such a thing would be very improbable. People would be out of work, all the Britney Spears wannabes out there would hold a nationwide protest because they would find less and less things at the mall to buy, and the US would have to give up its super power status. Yes, all these things would contribute much to our fight against global warming. But let's be realistic, just how many people out there care enough to actually pay attention to this? And even if enough people care enough about it, the key is to change the capitalists' attitude, not the common man.Much of the first world industries are built and calibrated to consume fossil fuel and produce fossil fuel consuming stuff. To change this would require vast amounts of resources and even more vast amounts of human will. Why do you think republicans, capitalists, and corporations (national and multinational alike) are so determined to try to convince everybody that global warming doesn't exist if it was as simple as how you've made it sounded? We are talking about changes in our economy and society that noone can even imagine.People often relate global warming to CFC back in the 70's and 80's. After all, people argue, that if we raise awareness enough we could stop the depletion of the ozone layer. And before anyone know it, CFC was banned and everyone was happy.But we have to remember that only a small portion of the economy depended on CFC. Finding an alternate chemical that produced the same results as CFC was relatively easy and people stopped using it. But what contributes to global warming is just about everything we do. Everything from running a factory to driving your car to using your computer to launching space shuttles into space to burning wood to burning leaves contributes to global warming. All of these things are so integrated into our society that it frightens people to have to think that we have to stop with some of these things.Again, why do you think republicans, capitalists, and corporations are so determined to make people believe global warming doesn't exist? Even christian churches around the world want everyone to believe there's no such thing as global warming. You are such a typical liberal fruitcake. The problem with trying to convince an audience that creationism does not belong in a science classroom is that the people who already agree with you you don't need to convince and the people who don't agree with you aren't capable of understanding the arguments you're going to present.Face it, most people don't know what the scientific method is. I have attended debates between scientists and local preachers where, through clever strawmen and lies, the preachers were able to convince the crowd that the scientists were idiots. There was one in particular where an astronomer was debating an evangelical preacher. Since I was one of the few who attended who had a background in science, I was able to recognize that the preacher was blowing total hot air out of his butt throughout the debate. At one instance, he even hinted that "falling stars" were actually falling stars. And yet, most of the people who attended applaused everytime the preacher said something because they were christians who didn't want to go to hell for denying the earth was flat... or some nonsense like that. To most people, the scientific method just means you take wild guesses and come up with complete nonsense to answer questions. They imagine that people like me make up answers to answer questions much the same way that know-it-all parents make up answers to answer to their kids rather than admit that they didn't know the answer.Anyway, sorry for the ramblings. Good luck with your thing!

Please, don't be. I am very appreciative you have given the time to respond to this thread. Congrats. I looked through the power point for this speech, and I saw a graph I had never seen before. It was the one used for "Ecological Engineering", I believe. It looked, to the best of my limited understanding, like a three-dimensional line graph, that also had properties of a bar graph. Most impressive.What type of graph is that?

An easy but good subject you could discuss is whether capital punishment work or not as a deterent.

The graph is one of the types available in EXCEL.That particular one I have available also at
http://aexion.org/eeintroduction.aspxand can be compared with Malthus' at
http://aexion.org/ecosystemengineering.aspxThe pictures are supposed to be here:
http://aexion.org/Documents/malthusnext.htmI really need to work up my pages on
http://www.aexion.org
that deal with ecosystem engineering.
http://aexion.org/ecosystemengineering.aspxThis is my solution to the population problem. What I said in that speech was that unlike solutions that look to getting technology into underdeveloped nations so as to cause a lowering of the birth rate as has occurred here one might try to apply evolutionary theory directly to ecosystems so as to microevolve creatures able to survive where current species can not (the mountain tops,the poles, deserts, and other planets). This would be an artifical selection of natural selection. I suggest that the same power that brought us the industrial revolution be used to "engineer" ecosystems, namley water. Each local area would only be permitted to eat food its local ecology would support. This is not thus an idea likely to get much traction among the rich elite who like their food and eating out.Water is simply recycled and sent to man made forest "gaps" thus creating migration way stations as ecological engineers (today's conservationists) cause directed gene flow and mixing among different watersheds that currently are being selected against by non-adapted creatures' environment. I have not made any calculations on how much time it would be to create creatures for food for man AND for life where it is not now present but if this determination is one that can result in significant effects in the next 500 yrs or so, I think this should be advanced.The thought is however somewhat contrary to Darwin's(and Gould's etc) position on Malthus and biogeography and it is likely to cause people to fear a reincarnation of eugencis if not properly quantified. I became somewhat dismayed when I discovered that other evolutionists use the term "ecosystem engineering" for purposes other than the one I intended here, and yet this was double word I worked up as I communicated with people on "True Seekers" e/c forum before I began to post on EvC. It is really all my idea. I was initially disatisfied with the notion of r and k stratgies as representing any population growth since I could not bring my self to understand how the notion of "carrying capacity" necessarily absolutely existed.Thanks for looking at my work.

Right. In a capitalistic society, it's the individual, the consumer that holds the power. If enough individuals act, this will "force the industries to stop consuming so much gddamn fossil fuel". The power rests with us. Possibly, but I'm unsure on this one. But the common people are the capitalists and the key. By changing the behavior of enough individuals, you have the ammo necessary for change on a drastic scale, such as the change from a primarily fossil-fuel based economy to one that implicates a healthy dose of renewable energy as well.Very vague terms, I know. If I made it sound easy then that is entirely my fault. I had no intentions of making it appear that way. This is not something that can be accomplished half-assed or with a minimal effort. Why, thank you. Don't apologize. I always enjoy a debate with a fellow EVC'er, even on a topic that wasn't intended for one. Thanks. And thank you for your time.