This house believes that tv(television) has a negative effect on society.

If we measure the pulse rate of people exiting a roller coaster, we'll find their pulse is racing. Will it stay high for the rest of their lives? No. Pro cites many lab experiments that show that massive exposure to television violence desensitizes children for a few hours. The experimenters claim that this proves that television has a negative effect on society. I asked for a study that shows that the effect lasts for more than a few hours. Pro cannot produce a single study. An eminent psychologist performed a thorough search of the literature. He could find nothing to support the notion. There is counter evidence. The frequency and intensity of violence on television has been increasing uniformly since its inception. So has violence in society been steadily increasing? No, it increased for a couple of decades, after which it has been dropping. Pro ignores the data and does not respond. If human nature is that violent television causes a violent society, then Japan should be a violent country. It is not; it has the lowest rate of violence in the world. Pro, enamored of debating in the comments rather than the debate, simply dismisses it there as only one country. If it is supposed to be human nature that violent television causes a violent society, then there should not be any exceptions. The premise cause-and-effect premise is unsustainable. Pro points to studies showing a correlation between sexually irresponsible teenagers and their watching sex-laced television. I challenged the cause and effect relationship, claiming that it was more likely that there was a common external cause, such as poor parenting. The argument for an a common external cause is again advanced by the eminent psychologist that searched the literature and found no study proving cause and effect. Pro rebuts that it must be cause and effect because the researchers who did the studies claim it was. An unsupported claim does not establish proof. A study could test that hypothesis by examining teenagers with equally good parenting in homes with and without television to see if television was the causal factor. Pro cannot point to any such study and neither can anyone else, because no such study exists. The social sciences are rank with such errors. I asked Pro for just a single example of one of the claimed studies so I could examine the details of the statistical analysis. A social scientist with a statistical package is a dangerous thing. Pro produced nothing. Keep in mind it was psychologists who, until recently, had determined by consensus that homosexuality was a form of mental illness, a serious mistake that they were finally forced to admit. The mistake they made in that case was that the psychologists projected their conclusions upon the studies rather than allowing the studies to lead to the conclusions. That is exactly what they are doing with the data on television. No cause and effect is shown in any study, yet they claim it proved. I claimed that parents exercise control over their children's access to television, so if there is any fault it is not with the electronic box. Parents can choose not to have a television, to keep it locked up, to not subscribe to X-rated cable channels, or to use V-chip technology. Pro ignored the argument. I argued that television reflects the values of society; it does not drive them. If Pro succeeded in banishing television, the villains would then be video games, the Internet, movies, magazines, and ultimately books producing the negative effects that Pro abhors. Before the advent of alternative media, books were in fact the target of social arbiters wishing to limit what people can see and read. At least the old-fashioned book-burners had the sense to target just certain material that they wanted to censor. Pro, perhaps, could have enlightened them as to the inherent evil of paper and printing from which errant material flows, just as he claims that evil resides in television's box, not in the content supplied by people. Pro claims that television shows commercials that make dubious claims. Most people are willing to accept the advertising in return for the free, or subsidized, program content. They do so voluntarily. If television vanished, would that put an end to dubious advertising? There is no possibility of that. Dubious advertising was, if anything, worse before the invention of television. The problem is solely one of educating consumers. There is nothing contingent upon the device that delivers the messages. Pro did not respond to this argument. Pro states that it is my job to establish that television has beneficial effects. That is incorrect. The affirmative bears the burden of proof. If Pro offers no convincing proof, then the resolution fails as unproven. It is like a criminal case. The defendant does not bear the burden of proving his innocence, only of showing the case against him is unproven. Nonetheless, I asked Pro the methodology by which the beneficial effects of television ought to be weighed against the negative effects. I asked, by analogy, how we would decide if fire was a net positive or negative for society. It is easy to show cases of out-of-control fires having negative effects. So how should we evaluate it? Pro had nothing of substance to say on the subject of how such an evaluation ought to be done. The idea is to summon horrendous visions of television laying waste to society and hope that no one remembers the positive impact of television in bringing news, information, and enjoyable entertainment into the home. What is the value of the average person being witness to history, seeing space exploration, hurricanes, inaugurations, Olympic games, and even wars and devastation? It is difficult to quantify, but it is there. Pro argues that I did not provide evidence of the beneficial nature of television. Since Pro seems to agree that there is no way to quantify the benefits and detriments, the concept is akin to a poetry contest. I could try to make the audience swoon with the delights of television, while Pro conjures up lurid visions of permeating evil. Emotions would then rule. Taking that route would be endorsing errant logic. Television is a box. Nothing comes out of it that is not put into it. Therefore it, of itself, has no influence whatsoever on society. That logic prevails regardless of what is concluded about the nature of the content. In fact, Pro's case regarding content fails. Budding social engineers in the guise of social scientists are keen on controlling what people see. They do short term experiments showing desensitization and claim permanent damage to society in the form of increased violence, despite the statistical trends in society being counter to what they claim. They claim cause and effect between sexual content on television and irresponsible behavior among teenagers, but they have no data whatsoever to support a cause and effect relationship. In fact, both are products of society. The resolution is negated.