this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Very good point - I think however it's worth noting the lack of the NSDA's addressing of the judges biases and the high levels of debate within that organization the specific people oversee.
Regardless, and to the authors point, if an alternative org is provided that people prefer, it will gain popularity.
My own high school debate days are decades in the past. From that perspective, though, the fact that you can easily look up the judges' biases, and so prepare for them, is a huge advance that we would never have even dreamed of.
I'd be interested in a more serious analysis that went through all 47,000+ paradigms and categorized biases so some non-anecdotal conclusions could be drawn. That would take a lot more time and money than picking out a few instances that the writer knows about.
And yes, if an alternative ends up being liked better by debate coaches, people will go in that direction. It's entirely possible that debate competition will end up being as fragmented as national politics.
to be honest though i'm not really sure how you can address human bias here, and i'm confident this was also a problem before people started complaining about wokeness like they are here. obviously in an ideal world you would have a system that can impartially adjudicate these things--but these debates are often on very real subjects that impact real people. (in a lot of cases, i'd argue there is even a correct answer to most of these debates that inevitably looms over them.) i suspect the easier route is to just bake in the reality that people will have biases and that's a part of convincing them in the debate process.
I see that and you explained it well. I guess it's the idea that in the debate it's not about the merits of your ideas but things outside the debate that affect if you win or lose in this scenario that's the problem for me. Point totally taken though that we'll never fully remove the biases, I just think we should try to be as even handed as possible in these educational settings.