Not to mention that a lot of these public 'debates' about topics unfairly give time and energy to perspectives which do not deserve them.
For example, 99% of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and human-caused, but - oh! - we need to be fair and balanced so we'll give time to the other side that has tons of untested and unproven crackpot theories about maybe that's just what climates do and we just shouldn't bother trying to do better.
Likewise with 'vaccines cause autism'. There's no scientific evidence whatsoever to show any link whatsoever, but we need to be balanced so we have to give time to both sides.
The headline example on their site is 'are seed oils healthy?' Assuming an agreed-upon definition of 'healthy', this shouldn't be a debate. Are they good for you in moderation or not? Let's look at the science. Oh, they're fine? Great, debate over.
They also have "AGI in 5 years?" What's to debate there? Sure, it's possible, who knows? What's the point in debating whether or not something might happen?
If it were 'will AGI be beneficial for humanity?' then okay, that could be a debate, but none of these topics I'm seeing are good fodder for debate; just arguments or baseless assertions.
>The headline example on their site is 'are seed oils healthy?' Assuming an agreed-upon definition of 'healthy', this shouldn't be a debate. Are they good for you in moderation or not? Let's look at the science. Oh, they're fine? Great, debate over.
The problem is that in any contentious topic where the science isn't definitive, each side will latch onto whatever ambiguous studies that favors their position. For seed oils it's various studies showing "inflammation", and ad-hominem on how opposing studies are funded by big oil (or whatever). Or think about how during the pandemic, there was conflicting evidence on whether masks worked, or whether ivermectin cured covid. We now have a much better understanding, but at the start of the pandemic there was weak evidence both ways.
That’s true, but I think even in those cases, debate unveils important questions that can help arrive at more definitive answers as future data comes in.
Thanks for these considerations. I think even if a debate doesn’t help arrive at an ultimate truth, it can still be beneficial as a substrate for revealing important questions that can then provide a deeper or more nuanced understanding of a given topic.
I understand that's the goal, but the end result is that a charismatic debater that engages in emotional rhetoric that can appeal to the audience will "win" over a well-researched academic more often than not.
Perhaps asynchronous debate through written word exchanges undertaken over weeks, in the spirit of the Federalist Papers, could help mollify this risk. Logosive supports this format.
I’ve also enjoyed the debate about debate that this discussion has generated, so thank you for that.
For example, 99% of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and human-caused, but - oh! - we need to be fair and balanced so we'll give time to the other side that has tons of untested and unproven crackpot theories about maybe that's just what climates do and we just shouldn't bother trying to do better.
Likewise with 'vaccines cause autism'. There's no scientific evidence whatsoever to show any link whatsoever, but we need to be balanced so we have to give time to both sides.
The headline example on their site is 'are seed oils healthy?' Assuming an agreed-upon definition of 'healthy', this shouldn't be a debate. Are they good for you in moderation or not? Let's look at the science. Oh, they're fine? Great, debate over.
They also have "AGI in 5 years?" What's to debate there? Sure, it's possible, who knows? What's the point in debating whether or not something might happen?
If it were 'will AGI be beneficial for humanity?' then okay, that could be a debate, but none of these topics I'm seeing are good fodder for debate; just arguments or baseless assertions.