Nonsense. A ten year old could beat a Harvard debater if he was arguing that the Boston Celtics could beat most little league teams in baseball. Its only when it is close that expert debaters have the edge even if they have the wrong side.

Way to get overly literal. I think Kimbo's point is, if the facts claimed and points made aren't obviously ridiculous and are well articulated they will win.

A seasoned debater, like a seasoned lawyer, can manipulate the facts etc. in anything with any question of doubt to win against a noob/dunce.

Case in point; I won a debate recently on the position of whether we should just accept other cultures are deadly using ridiculous circular arguments such as the morality of freedom of expression and religion is better than our subjective moral ideas.
If there is an actual difference of opinion, not meddling of the facts, it canhappen

The dumber the opponent the wronger your side can be to give you a chance. But Dawkins is a relatively smart guy and therefore he shouldn't lose unless the other side is on solid ground.

It seems to me that the aim of debates is PR, not any addition to knowledge (I would think books, papers and so forth would count towards the latter).

By not debating a prominent debater he loses ground in the PR fight. He looks scared, especially if he's willing to debate other less-credentialled debaters (those other debates also not adding to knowledge in the field in any substantial way).

The first part is obviously true, but the second part makes me think you've maybe never been involved in formal debate? I know how you love to put numbers on things - I'd say 'winning' a debate is at most 30% a question of your actual content. Tactical considerations and presentation make up the rest. I don't rate Dawkins high on tactical considerations - long story short, he's too earnest - and I don't think anyone would dispute that as a speaker he leaves a lot to be desired.

It kind of gets into what you mean by 'solid ground', anyway. With this specific issue most points revolve around acceptance or rejection of certain claims or implications of those claims. Not much empirical stuff to go on.

Yeah...don't underestimate rhetoric. A skilled debater can completely nail knowledgable people to the wall. It won't necessarily fool an informed observer, but that is also fully possible. Words, empathy, language and social interaction doesn't have the simple and brutal logic of numbers and mathematics. Being right doesn't necessarily get you anywhere.

You also have metatactics, like deliberately manipulating the debate into the weaknesses of your opponent...then you can get a weak "target" you can consistently return to.

How much, though, and with how many people? Only people who both follow such debates and place more stock in them than they merit, no? A fairly small segment of the population.

Whereas if he debates Craig, he will 'lose' - pretty well inevitably. The debate will be recorded. Small sections of the debate will be put up on Youtube labelled as 'Atheist Dawkins DESTROYED By Philosophy Professor', 'Dawkins OWNED by Craig' and so forth. Such context-free segments will reach a far wider audience than those who will even know that he is refusing to debate Craig, never mind care. I'm reasonably sure he's taken these factors into account in his decision.

He may be in a lose-lose position and refusing to debate may well be the best option for him. Nonetheless, I was answering the question of how he has 'lost ground' - and I think it's in the PR stakes. He certainly doesn't win anything (except for with the anti-Craig crowd, perhaps) by refusing to debate him.

I think it is lose-lose.

The problem with this strat is the debater who topic dumps ( Craig) turns around and says, " My opponent refuses to answer 3 out of my 7 contentions so those 4 stand on their own and I win the debate". It's a jerk move. You can see Craig do it at that 4 Christians + Hitchens "debate".

There are strategies to take care of it such as grouping, but that is more in the realm of knowledge of debate and less about being a good oratory speaker which is what these debates are.

Well I do too, though not with the same confidence as you I suspect. I also have a feeling (based purely on middle class after dinner conversations in a small, backwater city in South Australia) that Craig is as well known amongst the undecideds as Harris is (ie not at all). I doubt that the headlines you hypothesise would have much effect other than giving the pro-Craig crowd a confidence boost.

Same thing with Hitchens too. I expected more. Hitchens did the 4 Christians + him debate, where Craig announced he was debating Hitchens and it seemed like Hitchens didn't do any prep work while Craig had Hitchens down pat.

"Evolution is a miracle of God!"

Not headlines - I guess I understand someone of a certain age might not get it, no offence - but I'm really serious about those Youtube clips.

For example. Bill Maher is a well-known comedian and sometime lightweight political commentator. His views on religion are well known (he takes a poor view). A search on Youtube for 'Bill Maher religion' yields this clip. In the 'Suggestions' banner to the right, there's a link to Dawkins being interviewed on Joe Rogan's 'The Hour'. In the Suggestions column to the right of that you can find both "Bill O'Reilly SCARED by Richard Dawkins" and "Richard Dawkins stumped by creationists' question (RAW FTGE)"

Stuff like that - from both sides - is the hard, dirty edge of the propaganda war. The videos arrive in the Suggestions box based on a mix of criteria, but primarily the title and keywords input by the person uploading the video. I don't blame Dawkins for not wanting to give the creationists any more ammo than he does just by allowing himself to be filmed generally.

Hitchens looked pretty beat-down by the end of that debate, alright. He has enough charm, erudition and wit to make it passable but he didn't put the work in, and it showed.

None taken - I'm something of a nineteenth century throwback.
I basically agree (though I'm not sure Dawkins has thought about it as much as you suggest) I don't think he's going to be any better off by debating Craig unless it's in written format. I just don't agree with what I took to be ctyri's claim that Dawkins doesnt "lose ground" by refusing any such opportunity.

Oh, he loses ground, alright.

It would surprise me, though, if he didn't have a marketing team or some analogue thereof, and if they're not taking the Youtube factor into account, they're getting money for old rope, in my opinion.

Debates should be about convincing people who will not fall for appeals to emotion or logical fallacies, to revise their initial estimate of the probababilities regarding which side is correct. If that is not what debates are about, ie changing the betting odds in smart judges minds, they are irrelevant.

The trouble is that emotive appeals work. If you want to have any impact on popular thinking you have to play that game - adopting the intellectual high ground and presenting reasoned argument isn't going to be as effective as a well marketted slogan-based competitor. (Though it's refreshing to see you advocating the hi falootin' approach for a change. )

Ah, to live in that 'should be' world...

[QUOTE=bunny;26627198]The trouble is that emotive appeals work. If you want to have any impact on popular thinking you have to play that game - QUOTE]

I have no interest in having impact on popular thinking. For instance my poker books were not targeted so much on the suckers who were playing against mediocre pros, but rather college kids who would realize that they could quickly become better than those pros with my help. DUCY does the same thing regarding real life situations.

I've got an idea for a competition they should have.


Each one submits something of value they have written and
the judges decide.

Dawkins can, for instance, submit "The Selfish Gene", one
of the most influential general science books ever written

and Craig can submit one of his useless diatribes (IMO).

We're not talking about you, we're talking about Dawkins and Craig. They are trying to influence popular thinking and as such needs to address their aims, not yours.

Unless you're arguing that nobody should try to influence popular thinking but rather teach rich kids how to get richer.

lol

*Grunch*

Not really. Evangelism isn't the first example of the most brilliant not being the most "respected".

It's probably been said, but I don't think this is true at all.

We know very well that capillary action occurs.

If I were to argue that it does in a debate with a supremely skilled debater, I'd easily lose.

The reason is simple - capillary action is tough for most people to understand. It can't be clearly demonstrated to them, and even videos of capillary action can be waved away as some other phenomenon. Because they can't actually understand the theory, they're forced to take someone's word for it - that's when expert debaters have the edge.

Of course, this happens when the debate is close, but it also happens when it's just plain confusing for the audience.

(If capillary action isn't convincing you, try the four color theorem.)