Philosophy is of greater value than science to students.

The burden of proof in this debate is relatively simple: my opponent attempts to show that philosophy is more important than science in terms of its value to students, and I attempt to prove the opposite-- that science is more important. I will present my opening argument within my rebuttals to Pro's constructive case. R1) Versatility Pro claims that a degree in philosophy opens up occupations in a variety of different fields. However, his only source for that claim is the homepage of a random university's philosophy department, which is clearly biased, as it is has been purposefully crafted to try convincing students to select philosophy as their major. In reality, philosophy has very limited versatility, as shown by the fact that philosophy majors have an above-average unemployment rate; in fact, this high unemployment rate is such a prominent outlier that philosophy even made number four on Forbes' top-ten list of worst majors [1]. Now, Pro may argue that science doesn't perform very well in this area either, seeing that a science major's occupational choices are generally limited to the field they specialized in. However, science as a category encompasses many more specialties than philosophy does (e.g. microbiology, chemistry, quantum physics, ecology, etc), so in that sense, science IS far more versatile than philosophy. This contention goes in my favor. R2) Applicability Pro asserts that philosophy has much more real world application because it teaches students the "art of thinking". To support this, he cites a correlation between philosophy majors and high intelligence indicators. However, I believe that my opponent is confusing cause and effect, here; this correlation would only show that philosophy has significant value to students if majoring in philosophy was *causing* that high intelligence. Of course, that cannot be true-- taking an advanced course of academic study at the age of a college student, which is right around the age that the brain exits its development stage, does not "increase" your intelligence. It is much more likely that it is the other way around, with people who already have high intelligence choosing to major in philosophy because their brains can handle the difficult concepts being taught. Thus, we see that Pro's statistic here does not really support the resolution at all. And besides that, philosophy majors are actually second on the list of highest IQs and standardized test scores-- number one on the list is Physics majors [2]. Even by Pro's own fallacious reasoning, a science major is superior to a philosophy major! But aside from the statistics, let's go back to Pro's original claim that philosophy has more applicability because it teaches students the "art of thinking". There are a few problems with this, obviously. Firstly, in terms of professional utility, simply learning *how* to think is fairly useless without substantial technical knowledge to know *what* to think. Pro's claim that you can obtain a job in the scientific field with just a philosophy major is patently false. Secondly, one can learn the "art of thinking" just as easily from studying science-- the extensive research and data analysis involved in the majority of modern, higher-level science curriculums involve many aspects of our mental faculties, quite effectively teaching the "art of thinking". The sciences clearly have much greater professional applicability than philosophy does. R3) Practicality Pro argues that philosophy has more practical value than science because it "is what grants meanings to many things" and "can take you down many, many roads". He starts off with a quoted anecdote about the competitiveness of academic philosophical circles; however, this really proves nothing... not only is the same level of intellectual rigor present in the scientific community (e.g. peer-reviewed articles, reproducible experiments, etc.), but intellectual rigor doesn't even vaguely connect to the topic of the contention at hand: practicality. The rest of Pro's case is full of bare assertions that philosophy grants meaning to everything and allows for a broader view of reality than science does. Putting aside for a moment that this is all his subjective opinion (I could just as easily assert that knowing how the universe works is essential to a comprehensive view of reality), I must ask: why does any of this matter? What practical output does knowing the "deeper meanings" of everything yield? The only honest answer is NONE. Meanwhile, if we shift over to the sciences, we see that there are numerous practical benefits. From microbiology, we get potential cures for cancer and ways to grow synthetic organs. From quantum mechanics, we get cutting-edge technological innovations such as the quantum supercomputer. From environmental science, we get cost-effective solutions to global warming and its related problems. None of that requires any knowledge of the "deeper, philosophical truths" of reality, yet that is exactly the sort of progress which we value most. Science is far, far superior to philosophy in terms of practicality. ========================== In conclusion, I have thoroughly refuted each of my opponent's opening arguments, turning every one of them into a plus point for the sciences. It is evident that science poses much greater value to students than philosophy because of its greater versatility in the job market, its occupational applicability, and the practical output it yields in general. The resolution is negated. [1] http://www.forbes.com... [2] http://www.statisticbrain.com...