The Burden of Proof should be Optional, not Necessary

"On debate goals 1) You can find the truth without evidence. The truth is always out there, again though, evidence helps." Wrong. You can state the truth without evidence, but you would not be able to correctly designate it as truth without it. "2) It is to convince the audience, which you can do without proof but it helps. Again showing its a luxury one should put the best of use to, but not a necessity." Wrong again. Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy. The fact that many people believe it is not enough. Debate is a way to hack away at arguments and ideas until only the truth remains. The truth is visible when there are no logical flaws in an argument. "You can have an argument without showing evidence. So long as you know it, that is proof enough that there is some modicum of substantiation." Not about evidence. The argument itself satisfies burden of proof. You cannot have a conclusion without an argument, you can only have a thesis. "Ruin how? They take the fun out of it? Isn't your stance that its not about fun, only convincing? If you simply can do it, doesn't that mean fallacies are a good thing?" Wrong. That's your stance. I believe that the truth is objective and the goal of debate is to find it. As I said before, convincing someone of something doesn't make it true. "No, defending it only requires manipulation. Facts help that, but words are still just as effective. As long as you can convey your point and make others believe it your making an argument, with or without direct proof." This is where we clash. You don't believe in truth. To you, the truth is what everyone believes. To me, the truth is an objective ideal that we must get to in debate. "Similarly, a man can stand there with as many charts, graphs, and articles as he wants, but someone with better powers of self reasoning will always win. This is why religion is so much more prominent than science. You can show as much proof as you want, but the on who is more appealing will win." It's not about who wins. It's about who is correct. The religious person may win by popularity, but he isn't the true winner because he did not arrive at the truth. The scientist with all the evidence would be the true winner. The truth does not depend on popularity. "I already did justify it. Perhaps you did not read my last round clearly enough. I had prior knowledge of what Burden of Proof is and presented it. You can wikipedia Burden of Proof, and it will say the exact same thing. I know, I looked, and you can do so on your own." You did not view the disambiguation. According to wikipedia, there are articles for legal proceedings, rhetoric (aka DEBATE, which is the article with MY definition) and logical fallacy, which shows what happens when someone uses burden of rpoof the wrong way. "All of which involve the presentation of a logical proof." "No, only logic, which you do with your mind, not with hard evidence. As you'll recount, the only 'evidence' we have both shown is strictly word oriented. Very vague and unspecific to real happenings, yet clear enough so the opponent and audience can understand. Your only proving my point." Wrong. This is only due to your misguided belief that the burden of proof is the same as hard evidence, which is is not. The burden of proof is simply the presentation of a logical argument. So in reality, you are proving *my* point. "On your last point about me misunderstanding what burden of proof is. I believe it is your definition that may be incorrect. As I said, burden of proof is purely legal. What it is is the necessity to show hard evidence to prove something to be true. For instance, without a murder weapon, bodies, and plausible links you cannot convict a serial killer. Law enforcers have to show this as it will determine the further lifestyles of human beings. It is the burden of the police and lawyers to provide proof for their cases. It is rather the members of this site who may or may not have misconstrued it into using it as a cheap tactic in attempting to show the possible ineptness of their opponent. What you are describing is exactly what I am proposing, in that if one can logically conclude their premises there is no need to provide hard evidence. I've been saying this from the beginning of this debate. If there is anyone who is at fault for arguing on a wrong point it is you. If this is the case then it is I who have won. It seems that it is you who in this last round must prove, as I said in the beginning "con's position: That the burden of proof is not optional, but necessary". I have, for this whole debate, rebutted every one of your examples, showing that ones own prowess is enough to win a civilian debate. You are saying that hard evidence is needed, which is what burden of proof is, thus treating any regular debate like a legal proceeding. Trying to switch our positions will not win you this debate, only prove that you don't know what your talking about. I remind the voters of my stance and my opponents. I have argued on my case the entire time, while my opponent has been misguided by his own misunderstanding. While voting, remember it is not which side you agree on on a personal level, but which side presented and defended their case better. So that people might be clear on what Burden of Proof is, I will provide some right now with the wikipedia article link. Perhaps then this may finally be settled: http://en.wikipedia.org...... Darth_Grievous_42 out." Hilarious. This debate is now quite over. My opponent has sadly centered his entire argument of "Burden of proof" on the WRONG WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE. http://en.wikipedia.org... Burden of proof (rhetoric) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Burden of proof means the reasons that have to be met before a proposition of fact, value, or policy can be evaluated. My opponent has looked merely on the first result of "burden of proof", which has to do with law. However, he did not take the time to click "DISAMBIGUATION" and find the article associated with RHETORIC. We are talking about debate, thus, the article on RHETORIC would be the valid one. Thus, your argument has completely disintegrated. Burden of proof does not only apply to law, and does not strictly mean hard evidence. According to the provided definition, it is merely the amount of reasoning or evidence needed to come to a valid conclusion. BY DEFINITION, THE BURDEN OF PROOF MUST BE SATISFIED FOR A DEBATE TO BE CALLED A DEBATE.