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Pro vs. con view
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PRO

CON

  • CON

    We need to do something" is well intended, But not...

    We need to change the way we live or we will all die

    The intention and general idea of your concept is kind, But the details are muddy. "We need to do something" is well intended, But not exactly constructive for a complicated series of issues that institutions have been trying to solve for a long time. First, "we will all die" is a blanket statement. Even when the effects of global warming completely engulf lowly elevated areas, And exacerbated natural disasters kill millions of people, I doubt this means extinction of the human species. Question: does the evidence of global warming, So far, Reasonably indicate that every single area of the planet will be inhospitable? What if, Hypothetically, 80% of people died. Quality of life would be absolutely terrible, We'd enter a dark age and our whole lifestyle would "We need to do something" is well intended, But not exactly constructive for a complicated series of issues that institutions have been trying to solve for a long time. First, "we will all die" is a blanket statement. Even when the effects of global warming completely engulf lowly elevated areas, And exacerbated natural disasters kill millions of people, I doubt this means extinction of the human species. Question: does the evidence of global warming, So far, Reasonably indicate that every single area of the planet will be inhospitable? What if, Hypothetically, 80% of people died. Quality of life would be absolutely terrible, We'd enter a dark age and our whole lifestyle would change, But we wouldn't be extinct or endangered. The big causes of extinction for other species such as highly restrictive diet and natural predators don't exist for people. It's reasonable to believe a portion of humanity would survive, Reproduce and take a much smaller role in the world. Second, Is it feasible to control population? As you said, It's a self-regulating system. Should every government do what China did and outlaw having more than one child? The largest source of population growth is development of underdeveloped countries. Populations do stabilize once the economy is developed enough. If dirt poor countries, Like Zimbabwe, For example, Had a major technological or agrarian revolution, The population would swell. Would we yoke the growth of poor countries to achieve population balance? It reproduces until the environment can no longer support the bacteria and they starve to death. If you are a follower of Darwin you must take in to consideration that we too are a species that has the same natural instincts of all other living creatures. Reproduce and protect yourself. We continue to grow as a species but we are the first species to ever to have the opportunity to evade our own death. My argument here is that change needs to occur. We, As a species, Must decide what we are going to do. Third, Who is we? Is it the common person? As moralistic as the "tragedy of the commons" argument is, Me buying a hybrid car won't do anything if the rest of my country is still driving Hummers? And even if the rest of my country uses clean energy, What happens when other countries like China refuse to? Do we need a global government to enforce this? Overall, Our role as people in this earth is very limited. We should reduce the harm of global warming as much as we can, But the decision won't sway the outcome much. If we act now, We'll attenuate tragedies, But not avert them. If we don't act now, I don't think it'll be the end of humanity.

  • CON

    The total number of fruit flies in the world is most...

    Evidence that mutation is the cause of change in evolution has not been proven

    First, I will rebut my opponent's arguments. First, the fruit fly. Pro claims the studies on the fruit fly amount to "millions of years of supposed evolutionary time". I dispute this claim. The total number of fruit flies in the world is most definitely in the billions (considering there are 4,400 species, and their numbers, they being prolific, far greater than our own), and they live three weeks. I would like to ask Pro how scientists compiled "millions of years of evolutionary time" in what has been studies from the '80s and 90's - only 20 to 30 years. Scientists would have to have trillions of fruit flies, all being tracked, to meet this requirement. Even a thousand, or a hundred years of evolutionary time is a wild exaggeration. As to Pro's point about the fruit fly changes - do you have any studies to back that up? That no changes to the fruit flies were made because of mutations? In the human genome, 2-3% codes for proteins[1]. The rest have no effect that we know of. The same would hold for the fruit fly. The great probability is that Goldschmidt hit these bases repeatedly, and produced no new effect. Here is a study where scientists did get a The total number of fruit flies in the world is most definitely in the billions (considering there are 4,400 species, and their numbers, they being prolific, far greater than our own), and they live three weeks. I would like to ask Pro how scientists compiled "millions of years of evolutionary time" in what has been studies from the '80s and 90's - only 20 to 30 years. Scientists would have to have trillions of fruit flies, all being tracked, to meet this requirement. Even a thousand, or a hundred years of evolutionary time is a wild exaggeration. As to Pro's point about the fruit fly changes - do you have any studies to back that up? That no changes to the fruit flies were made because of mutations? In the human genome, 2-3% codes for proteins[1]. The rest have no effect that we know of. The same would hold for the fruit fly. The great probability is that Goldschmidt hit these bases repeatedly, and produced no new effect. Here is a study where scientists did get a change in phenotype via muations - [2]. Take, for another example, nylon-eating bacteria. Bacteria were discovered in 1975 that could eat nylon - which was not invented until 1935[3]. Japanese scientists discovered the point of mutation[4]. While the exact mechanism of it has been disputed (frameshift, deletion, insertion, etc.), the fact remains mutations produced a beneficial trait in these bacteria, and they evolved. Scientists later discovered 470 of these types of muations in the human genome[5]. Finally, I shall respond to Pro's point on the fossil record. Pro claims because we have a lack of transitionary forms, this disproves evolution via mutation. I would like to introduce the theory of punctuated equilibrium to explain this[6]. As the theory states, stasis is the dominant state for most of a species' history, and is only broken when environmental or other such circumstances force an evolutionary change from the original form that was largely beneficial in the past. This theory makes sense; if the form a species has is working, why evolve away from it? It is only when the form is no longer useful or advantageous that it would need to change. And, as an example of one such form, perhaps in a period of breaking away from stasis, I present Archaeopteryx[7,8]. It is thought to be a transitional form between small, predatory dinosaurs and today's birds, and is a perfect example of what Pro is looking for. All in all, Pro's arguments have not stood up to close inspection. I would also like the voters to consider that Pro dropped, and thus conceded, my argument considering the chimpanzee-human relation. You're on, Pro. http://www.ornl.gov... http://www.genetics.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.pnas.org... Okamura K, Feuk L, Marquès-Bonet T, Navarro A, Scherer SW (December 2006). "Frequent appearance of novel protein-coding sequences by frameshift translation". Genomics 88 (6): 690–7. doi:10.1016/j.ygeno.2006.06.009. PMID 16890400. http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu... http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu...

  • CON

    I, on the other hand, offer a quote from an official...

    it is not wrong for catholics to vote for a prochoice president, in this political climate

    My opponent has offered no source for her claims concerning the Pope, so please disregard them at this time. I, on the other hand, offer a quote from an official papal encyclical (Evangelium Vitae, paragraph 73): "In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to "take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it" Remember, dear voters, this debate is NOT about whether you are pro-life or pro-choice. It's about whether or not the Catholic Church says it's ok for its members to vote pro-choice. I think we all know the answer to that. With all due respect to my opponent, this debate is basically over. Please vote Con. Source: 1.http://www.vatican.va...

  • CON

    Attempting to prevent your public ever having to deal...

    Terrorists use our own media to terrify our people and create a climate of fear.

    Attempting to prevent your public ever having to deal with the terrifying realities of events in the international world is doomed to failure. People always manage to find out about some aspect of terrorist attacks one way or the other, and fear is spread, not contained, when the public don’t feel the government is telling them the truth. In reality, people rarely change their behaviour as a result of fear generated by terrorism – use of the London underground revived rapidly after the July 7th Bombings, and use of air travel soon recovered from the impact of 9/11.

  • CON

    It is impossible for abortion to be a "non issue",...

    it is not wrong for a catholic to vote for a prochoice president, in this political climate

    It is impossible for abortion to be a "non issue", because it is actually an issue that the Catholic church has deemed one of the most serious sins prevalent. It cannot be a "non issue", because every other societal issue is lacking in proportionality.