BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
On balance, human nature is more selfish than altruistic.

Hello! This debate was my contribution to bsh1's Open Debate Topics List (https://docs.google.com...), so I thought I might try it out.Definitions:Human nature: The psychological and social qualities that characterize humankind, especially in contrast with other living things. (http://www.dictionary.com...)Selfish: Devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others. (http://www.dictionary.com...)Altruistic: Unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others (http://www.dictionary.com...)First round is acceptance. BoP is shared.Looking forward to a good debate!
William the Conqueror had the right to invade Britain and become King of England

Re-rebuttal (whoops)First, I'd like to apologise about rebutting too soon, I didn't realise (whoops).My opponent states thusly: 'In simpler terms, even though it is possible that Harold gave the oath under duress, the legality of the oath does not change. Therefore Harold legally did not have the right to take the throne because he had already given his word to support William's claim. 'However, my opponent provides no proof that the legality of the oath does not change due to the context of Harold being under duress. Harold Godwinson stated the fact that his oath was taken under duress as a valid reason for not following it, therefore he evidently thought that the oath being taken under duress made it illegal. As did, apparently, all the barons at the time, none of whom revolted when he took power.My opponent states that Harold was not related to the house of Wessex, however he was related to it through marriage. My opponent recognised this fact in an earlier round: 'He was the son of Edward's brother-in-law, Earl Godwin, and therefore had no blood relation with the House of Wessex.' No blood relation, however there is still a relation as Harold is King Edward's brother-in-law. This definitely gives Harold a claim to the throne which is definitely helped by his coming from an incredibly powerful family in England. Thus, when Harold was acclaimed to be the King of England, he was the 'rightful' King and thus William, the Duke of Normandy, had no legal claim on the title.My opponent also states: 'As for the Papal Banner, the rebuttal is fairly similar to the point about Harold's oath. Although the Pope may have been misinformed about the situation in England, the only thing that matters is that he gave William the Banner. Due to the fact that he did grant William the right to invade England, William legally could do so.'This is fairly similar to the rebuttal about the point about the point about Harold's oath. My opponent provides no proof that the Pope's being misinformed about the situation didn't make the papal banner invalid. In fact, if the Pope had known about the fact that the duke of Normandy was outrightly lying to the arbiter of the catholic church (i.e. the pope), he may well have been excommunicated, which definitely would have taken away any possible claim the duke could have to any landed titles let alone a kingship.This has been an interesting debate, any idea's what we should do next? Leave suggestions in the comments!
William the Conqueror had the right to invade Britain and become King of England

REBUTTALAlthough I did not intend for the second round for rebuttals, as I did not explicitly state so I suppose I can't complain. Let's move on to my own rebuttals, shall we?My opponent starts off his argument by disproving, or at least challenging the idea that Harold Godwinson was shot in the eye with an arrow. While this is all very interesting, it is somewhat unrelated to the debate premise, so I won't discuss it any further. I understand the point about the legitimacy of Harold's oath. If it was even an actual historical event, the conditions in which Harold gave the oath are irrelevant. In simpler terms, even though it is possible that Harold gave the oath under duress, the legality of the oath does not change. Therefore Harold legally did not have the right to take the throne because he had already given his word to support William's claim. On to the next point. I agree with my opponent that Edward was not in a good condition to announce his heir. He then goes on to claim that the heir should have been the closest male heir, NOT William. This also is true, however the problem is that a direct male heir did not become king of England. Since Harold, who as I showed was not even related to the House of Wessex, took the throne, William had every right to invade England because he had a better claim, albeit marginally so. In fact, anybody with even the slightest claim on throne had the legal right to remove Harold from the throne and establish themselves into that position.As for the Papal Banner, the rebuttal is fairly similar to the point about Harold's oath. Although the Pope may have been misinformed about the situation in England, the only thing that matters is that he gave William the Banner. Due to the fact that he did grant William the right to invade England, William legally could do so. P.S. Britain just accounts for the island of Britain, not the country.
William the Conqueror had the right to invade Britain and become King of England

This debate will follow the premise that William I (the Conqueror) of England had a legitimate claim on the Kingdom of England and therefore had the right to invade Britain. I will take the pro side of this premise.This debate will follow a generic format with the first round being for acceptance only. I am keeping this debate impossible to accept, however I will likely open this up later on. Good luck!
Biblical Creationism has enough evidence to be considered a Scientific Theory

The Pro position officially recognizes Romanii (Con) for his kind conduct, for he posted a link to my arguments when I was having some complications with the character limit (instead of taking advantage of my forfeit). When voting, please under “who had better conduct” put it for con. Thank you for taking the time to read the Debate, for it was a long one. And I thank my opponent for debating me.As agreed I won’t be arguing anymore in this round.
Biblical Creationism has enough evidence to be considered a Scientific Theory

I will be arguing that Biblical Creationism does NOT have enough evidence to be considered a scientific theory. Definition of a Scientific Theory (1): "A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step known as a "theory"in the scientific method and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon." My opponent will have the burden of proof in this debate, so they will be putting forth their argument in the first round (i.e. no round exclusively for acceptance). In addition, in order to ensure that we both have the same number of rounds to debate, I would like to request that my opponent abstains from posting in round 5. I wish my future opponent good luck and eagerly await his argument. SOURCES: (1) http://www.livescience.com...
Abortion

My opponent has decided to completely ignore my arguments and instead due a copy and paste of his round one. Killing something that is alive is not murder. Under this feeble definition we murder every single day. Websters defines murder as the killing of another human being by another. My opponent then attempts to negate my heart argument by talking about a CBP or an artificial heart of which no fetus before 21 days possesses. Therefore a red herring. I already debunked his SLED argument in R1, he has offered no attempt at counter-argument. He also continued his appeal to religion in his last round. A fetus is not human due to its mental capacity. A fetus is not alive until it develops a fully functioning heart. Murder is not killing something that is alive. I've already given logical justification for why a mother has the inherent right to kill an alive being with potential sentience.
Abortion

Something is telling me that my opponent isn't fully comprehending my arguments, or just not reading them, so to keep myself composed allow me to submit my concluding statements and let you, the reader, decide who is right. ~~conclusion~~ The thing that grows inside of a pregnant woman is a fetus, and is alive, I can prove this by means of of Size, Level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. The though here is "if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacked like a duck, it must be a duck!" Given the fetus is alive, Abortion becomes Murder. Some people say that the lack of Heartbeat makes a fetus not alive, but there are alive humans rite now without a heart beat. If a woman is forced into a pregnancy there are alternatives to abortion. Multiple religions disagree with abortion agreeing on the fact that it is murder. S.L.E.D -Size: Are Tall people any more Human the those who are vertically Challenged? No. Given that relation, is a Big toddler any more human that a premature baby? No. Is there any difference between a baby out of the womb, then the baby inside the womb just one day ago? again- No. therefore, Tall person:short person::baby:fetus. -Level of dependency- Is a normal, healthy person any more human then someone who is on blood thinners? no. Are there any differences between a baby on a ventilator and a baby? no. Given the relation again, a Baby outside the womb should be no less human then a baby attached to His/Her mother via umbilical cord in the womb. -Environment- Is someone in a Isolation unite in a Hospital any less human then a person in the waiting room waiting to see his new baby sister? No. Am I any more human then the person in a box that i am sitting on now?no. Given all this, shouldn't any baby inside the womb be just as human as his/her big brother sitting on his mother's lap? they should. Degree of dependency- You say the baby is completely reliant on their mother, but isnt a toddler completely reliant on their care taker? Aye, it be so. "so yeah the baby is alive, but it has no heart beat for 21 days." Well during a Heart bypass surgery, there is no heartbeat in a human, the CBP takes over, allowing the doctors to stop, or cut open a heart. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] So say a Girl is taken advantage of, and becomes pregnant, or becomes pregnant and doesn't want the baby. She can give the child up for adoption, rite there in the Hospital room. She also could take a paid maturity leave from here work, and rest while the baby matures. Also, say it is in inconvenience, Just because you grandmother is an inconvenience, it is still murder if you kill them, and the same goes for a spouse or sibling. Murdering Babies in the womb is wrong. Here are some religions that agree abortion is wrong Buddhism[http://buddhism.about.com...] Hinduism-[http://www.fnsa.org...] Christianity[http://carm.org...] Godspeed.
Abortion

My opponent's fear unfortunately stems from his ability to present a clear argument. The category of which the debate is in doesn't give him the freedom to not use logic or back up or even create a resolution. My opponent then again attempts to make some semblance of an argument for which he says: that breathing and grasping are two innate characteristics of being a human. As the reader can clearly see, this is false. Apes grasp objects and breathe yet are not humans. Cats grasp objects with their paws and breathe, yet cats are not human. Life has a definition which is specific for species. My opponent is attempting to draw upon the definitions of life for inferior species and apply it to humans in order to futher his point. This is incorrect. The definition of life for humans is the presence of a beating heart and most major functioning organs as death is the stoppage of the heart and the end of most major functioning organs. A fetus at age of 20 days has no heart and no major functioning organs. It is not alive. My opponent then seeks to use anecdotal evidence, bizzare quotations about murder and passages from the Bible and the Qu ran which do nothing to further the resolution. My opponent has given no resolution, has set up no to little argumentation and pasted a bunch of irrelevant quotations. I have shown that a fetus before 21 days is not alive, is not a human until it has reached a level of sentience. Justification for why a mother should have the right to eliminate an alive being with the potential of reaching setience. A mother has the right to eliminate the potential life, because this life interferes with her own. She is responsible during the pregnancy for feeding and housing the life with potential sentience within her own body. A state or government has no right to dictate what an individual does with their body. A woman could easily choose to kill the child without an abortion by killing herself. As she has the ability and the right to kill herself, she inherently has the right and the ability to kill the child.
Abortion

Unfortunately my opponent has still provided absolutely no resolution in order to guide the debate. He has made the argument that life begins upon conception, and anything that is alive should not be killed. My opponent has established no viable definition of life ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A. A heartbeat is not even present until the 21st day after conception B. A human with no heartbeat is not considered to be alive C. Therefore, as a human, a fetus is not alive at conception. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brainwaves are also detectable in Chickens and chickens undergo REM Sleep (dreaming) [1] If my opponent is arguing that everything with brain waves and REM sleep should be denoted as a human, then he is advocating vegetarianism. My opponent has not made a resolution nor even attempted at proving it. He has used opinionated arguments which have all been debunked as false. Sources: [1] - http://www.time.com...
Abortion

Ah, my mind has been taxed by an AP World history exam, my arguments may have become jumbled within my head. Here is what I meant by "a fetus is unborn"- Life begins upon conception, and fetus therefore should have rights of a breathing human being. My opponent had brought up the argument that mental capacity legally can define weather a human is human or not. Well, the fact that 6 weeks after conception, brainwaves are detectable, and that enough think that is enough to be spared of life. In weeks 10 and 11, a baby can "breathe" and grasp objects, and in some cases that is better then a mentally disabled person. And at 17 weeks, a fetus could dream and achieve rem sleep. And at 20 weeks, when partial birth abortions can be preformed, a fetus or better yet baby at this point, can recognize Its its mother's voice. I think that is quite a good point that a fetus having a reasonable mental capacity, and proving that Fetus's are intact not zombies simply feeding of the mother. And as a side note, the third paragraph in my argument in round 1, was aimed as useful alternatives to an abortion. Don't kill the living.
Abortion

There is no argument that "A fetus isn't a Unborn". It is completely incorrect as a fetus isn't born, it lies inside the mothers womb and thus has not been born. Definitions: feï¿½tus/ˈfētəs/ Noun: An unborn or unhatched offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human baby. By definition a fetus is not born. Therefore my opponent agrees with me. Unfortunately my opponent probably meant to say: A fetus is an unborn or A fetus isn't born Which is more of a statement of fact that doesn't further his unnamed resolution. What he actually meant to say was probably A fetus deserves to have the same inherent rights a human and is no less of a human. Which is a workable phrase which would have furthered his resolution. He goes on to go about proving why a fetus is as a human as everyone else by setting up some bizarre analogies about dependency on medicine, height, productive organs of a child, etc. What really classifies a human as a human is the amount of brain activity. A fetus does not have the same mental capacity as a retarded person or the same capacity as an average human. Does brain capacity make someone less of a human? Actually yes it does according to the eyes of the law. If someone is at a low mental capacity they are not considered fully human under the eyes of the law and thus are assigned a guardian to make decisions for them. Imagine a slobbering person who in all physical respects resembled a human being. However this slobbering person goes around eating human flesh and has no brain capacity. It just is hungry and knows how to eat. Would we call this a human? Of course not, we call this a zombie. It is in this function that humans are recognized, by their brain capacity. Somewhere along the lines we have to draw the lines between zombie and human and a line is clearly drawn. Why can we not do the same between human and nonhuman? My opponent then sets up a strawman regarding rape, adoption, and birth control which have no bearing on the present debate.
Abortion

I am a busy high school student who doesn't always have a bunch of time, so it may take me a while to reply, and also I haven't debated on here in 2 years, so excuse my questionable manners.** Allow me to start by telling you the first argument in your head. "the fetus isn't a Unborn" Allow me to quickly disprove that argument, for the acronym "sled" can make quite a good argument, and Women who are forced into pregnancy have options. The Acronym SLED will prove this argument invalid, S.L.E.D. stands for Size, Level of Development, Environment, Degree of Dependency. Size- I am a 6'2" giant, does this make me any more human than a fully grown and capable "little person?" the answer, is no, no greater then a little fetus that can fit in the palm of your hand either.Environment- If a Midget were to climb into a box, would he be less human then he? would a man on the other side of the earth be any less human then me? no- nor is a fetus in a womb. Level of Development- A four year old girl's reproductive systems are not fully formed compared to that of a 16 year old girl, there for is a toddler less human then a teenager? again, surprise surprise-no, and therefore a toddler is just a human as a fetus. dependency- If a 30 year old man at risk of heart attack is Dependant on blood thinners, am I any more Human then He? again, no- nor am I any more of a human then a little fetus in a womb, who needs his mother to stay alive. Sled is an acronym standing for Size, Level of Development, Environment, Degree of Dependency and this is why a fetus is human. Women are sometimes forced into pregnancy via rape, and some find children to be a burden, such as a students and people heavily involved in the workforce, however there are other options besides abortion such as adoption or birth control. Rape victims may see children as a scar, but the gift of life is not in their hands to take, for as convent as it may seem, taking life (life which I have already established above) is considered murder, and yes childbirth is painful, but adoption is an option and the scar is gone, and life is saved. Hundreds of children are adopted, and putting up for adoption is very easy to do, you can even drop off babies at your local fire station in the state of California. Also, people like high school or collage students may see babies as an annoyance, but enjoy sex, and for this they created birth control. Birth control can be inexpensive, and since there are youngsters around here, I wont go into detail for their sake. Adoption and Birth control can be alternatives to abortion for victims of rape and students alike. SLED is an acronym used for proving live inside of a mother's womb, and Birth control or adoption is a suitable alternative to abortion. ~~best of luck to you.~~~
The concept of good and evil should ideally be abandoned in order to create a more just world

First debate on this website, so excuse my scrubbiness if I show any. Con opening argument: There are two types of morality in the universe: epistemology and ontological morality. The first one, epistemological morality, deals with what we perceive to be right and wrong. This is very subjective and changes from religion to religion, society to society, etc. However the second one, ontological morality, deals with what is actually right and wrong. Evidence for this type of morality falls on the fact that many ancient societies have developed similar morals independently from each other, which suggests that those morals are most probably right. (If you want me to provide evidence of similar morals among ancient societies, tell me and I will provide. ) I say this to show that there is a definite right and wrong in each situation. That being said, individuals should be taught morality, what is good and evil, to help them with there day-to-day life. That is the sole purpose of ethics/moral, to help people interact with each others and with society. Therefore, the concept of good and evil should remain in society. (only the ontological concept. ) But of course, people should be taught ontological morality and morality based on logic, like racism and sexism is wrong. Morality shouldn't be another tool for evil governments to control their people. To tell whether or not a morality is used to advance one's purposes, you have to look to see if you're allowed to research other types of epistemological moralities. I know your response to my argument, that 'how do we know what is truly good and evil. Just because we don't fully understand something, doesn't mean we have to abandon it. We have to figure out what morale rules will best help people in society.