BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Ladybugs are helpful to us and deserve respect

Seeing that she is new to the site I"d like to welcome her and look forward to many future interactions. I sympathize with the opponent"s view on the topic, I personally agree with her. But, for the sake of exercising rhetoric I will be arguing for the side that I disagree with. The resolution of the debate--that being the motion that is to be affirmed by Pro and negated by Con--is two pronged. The first being that ladybugs are helpful to humans, and secondly that they deserve respect. This interpretation of the resolution follows the argument that Pro made in R1, in that ladybugs are helpful to the human race through its niche in the ecosystem and thus US efforts to use pest control on ladybugs is unjust. I argue that although ladybugs are helpful, the species of hoverflies are extremely more beneficial while carrying none of the harms that ladybugs carry to the human race, and thus it is ok to not respect ladybugs. Ladybugs are a known destroyer of crops and homes [1]. The ladybug"s importance in the ecosystem and to gardens can be effectively replaced by the hoverfly which eats aphids just as effectively, but also gets rid of dangerous pests such as thrips, scale insects and caterpillars [2]. Hover flies also nectar flowers, as well as clean up the environment by consuming dead animal and plant matter [3]. Hoverflies are also harmless to all animals and imitate a wasp to ward off predators from its area. [see 3]. In all, hoverflies are a more beneficial insect to have than a ladybug because they do not consume crops and have many more beneficial traits than ladybugs. Humans should lose respect for ladybugs and replace their niche in the ecosystem with hoverflies in order to improve the environment, gardens, and ecosystems. Thus I negate the resolution, thank you. [1] . https://www.todayshomeowner.com... [2] . https://www.gardeningknowhow.com... [3] . https://en.wikipedia.org...
Atheism defined - Atheism does NOT have an impact on an Atheist worldview

I. atheistmaximus said: "You are anchored in beliefs that do not allow you to submerge into yourself and practical possibilities far beyond this scratch-n-sniff argument." - Yasser 1. If this argument is "scratch-n-sniff" as you have labeled it, it should be easy for you to refute it. 2. I am NOT the one that has presented an argument, I presented a statement of the implications of atheism and it was YOU who presented the argument for atheism as the best choice you have personally made. 3. In other words, you have called your OWN argument for atheism a "scratch-n-sniff" argument. To remind you the argument summarized below is YOURS in favor of atheism and how YOU personally define atheism: 1. Is Self-Responsibility. 2. Is NOT a system with teachings. 3. (It has) No assumptions. 4. It has no conflicts with logic and science. 5. Therefore, is freedom from all that and whomever assigns it. II. "I'm sorry, but I cannot even take these arguments seriously. They are little constructs, not realistic." 1. Once again is this the way you define your own argument for atheism? of "little constructs, not realistic." 2. All I have done is question your description of atheism. III. "Having shackles and being freed from them do NOT present the balanced "compare and contrast" you so much like to fabricate." 1. There has been NO "fabrication," and even IF there is one, they are the ones that you have made up as a description for atheism as you see it. IV. You are anchored in beliefs..." 1. Again, at this point it seems that you are the one anchored to a non-belief that you can't account for. IF atheism is to be true, then it has implications on the atheist worldview. Russell, as well as Nietzsche were willing to accept the implications of atheism. But, many "modern atheism" proclaimers are not comfortable when having to face the nihilism it brings to life or having to explain their way out of it. Thanks for the debate.
Atheism defined - Atheism does NOT have an impact on an Atheist worldview

You are anchored in beliefs that do not allow you to submerge into your self and practical possibilities far beyond this scratch-n-sniff argument. You're definitely seeking individual freedom. But it will not come dressed as religion, with theories, over-embelished NON-points, and doctrines that REQUIRE some sort of mechanical participation. I'm sorry, but I cannot even take these arguments seriously. They are little constructs, not realistic. Having shackles and being freed from them do NOT present the balanced "compare and contrast" you are fabricating.
Atheism defined - Atheism does NOT have an impact on an Atheist worldview

Your description of what atheism means to you. Here below (resumed in 5 points): Atheism (per your definition) is: 1. Is Self-Responsibility. 2. Is NOT a system with teachings. 3. (It has) No assumptions. 4. It has no conflicts with logic and science. 5. Therefore, is freedom from all that and whomever assigns it. I think these 5 points above are a fair summary of what you view as a definition of atheism. I do want to mention, that I think anyone who lives by a set of foundational assumptions about the world (i.e. the ones you provided above), has its implications. Let me touch on two points for now. Point #3 Atheism as per your description has/makes "No assumptions." Well, let's point out two contentions about point #3: 1. You have already made an assumption by implying that atheism is true. 2. You have already made an assumption by implying that (in this case religion standards) other views are not to be an alternative, " Self-responsibility wants nothing to do with the handouts that religion understands as standard." Are you sure that by your affirmation of atheism as true, you have NOT already made an assumption? Point #1, Atheism as per your description "Is Self-Responsibility." Contentions against point#1: 1. Your point #2 (atheism, Is NOT a system with teachings) discredits your own point #1 (Atheism is "Self-Responsibility). Is "Self-responsibility" itself NOT a teaching, or part of a system of teachings? 2. Why should I allow your personally defined moral values and moral duties ("self-responsibility") imposed on me? Then by no means have you held to your conclusion, Point #5 to be true ("is freedom from all that and whomever assigns it".) For if I want freedom from your ("whomever assigns it") "Self-responsibility," I should be able to exercise point # 5. But by doing so it will be an inconsistent way of living in a society. Since your moral duty ("Self-Responsibility) has no objective foundation, for your "Self-Responsibility" (moral duty) is whatever you personally desire to assign. Example: The main complaint that the "Occupy" movement seems to have is that WS self-imposed "Self-Responsibility" is only to benefit the "1%." Again how can anyone who affirms moral relativism as true even come close to imply that WS is objectively the "wrong doer."?
Subjectivity is vital to science and scientists.

“When a discovery is made that does not favor the discoverers belief that was held prior to the discovery, it will not be claimed.” This seems a common complaint, and reasonable concern for ethics. An ethical scientist may collect data that does not support his hypothesis and must still allow the data to be presented without modification. That he was wrong about experiment may only push his will to prove the initial hypothesis without damaging science - in fact as I stated - abandoned hypothesis based on failed experiments would leave the world without a great deal of advancement. “Thus, subjectivity science in favor of preserving old ideas will snowball into more lies, affecting the intentions of future generations who intend on preserving the belief they held, should they want to only preserve the belief that was held from the beginning.” I think that counterintuitive. Additional personal opinions, call it imagination, may break away from traditionally accepted understanding making way for new science to be explored. If the student only ready and accepts the current big-bang theory, we may miss out on something very specular.---------------- Thanks for the debate - thanks for completeing. I have had a run of abandoned debates, and really appreciate your follow through.- Please leave the last round blank.ThanksTBR
Subjectivity is vital to science and scientists.

"The act of forming a hypotheses is highly subjective. Asking the question starts with opinion and personal judgment"s. Defining the scope, or procedures can be described as subjective as well. " This why subjectivity is damaging to science. The question "How can i prove this is correct or false" is prejudice. A hypothesis starts with a question or statement, and presumes certain laws are in place that make the question/ statement possible. *Ex* If the scientist writing a hypothesis thinks video games cause violence, the subjective hypothesis could be " If subject A plays video games for X amount of time, they will be more violent than subject B who played for no amount of time.". The scientists belief that video games cause violence will not assume that A or B has outside influences, which can be cause for violent behavior. If it was not subjective, that there was no opinion formed before the question, it would read " Subject A will play video games for X amount of time for two weeks, and then play not at all for two weeks. Subject B will play for four weeks straight. After the first two weeks, we will count violent outburst by subject A and B". The second example does not presume there will be more violence, or less than what is already documented. They will form the control of the experiment, while subjective is already guessing the outcome. It is a very big leap of faith, where science should be blind and not prejudice based on what the scientist wants to believe.
Subjectivity is vital to science and scientists.

The act of forming a hypotheses is highly subjective. Asking the question starts with opinion and personal judgment’s. Defining the scope, or procedures can be described as subjective as well. Science begs for subjectivity. When observations run counter to a hypothesis, while the data cannot be “fudged” to fit the hypothesis, the scientist may not reject it, only reworking to resolve why the data is not proving it. Without the subjective nature of this act, all initial hypothesis that fail would be abandoned. There are questions that are hard or impossible to examine at this moment. Can I prove that additional universes exist? Can I build an experiment to show macroevolution at work? The very act of speculating based on personal opinions is the only way to start – a leap of “faith”. When Einstein felt that Newton had it wrong, he was relying on subjectivity.
Subjectivity is vital to science and scientists.

"Subjectivity refers to how someone's judgment is shaped by personal opinions and feelings instead of outside influences" Personal opinions are damaging to science. When a discovery is made that does not favor the discoverers belief that was held prior to the discovery, it will not be claimed. Even if the discovery was in opinion to be beneficial toward critical thinking. Science textbooks for example, don't want kids to know how many times big bang has been revised, it would affect the opinion of who ever reads it. Thus, subjectivity science in favor of preserving old ideas will snowball into more lies, affecting the intentions of future generations who intend on preserving the belief they held, should they want to only preserve the belief that was held from the beginning. Thank you audience, opponent, #con2015
Subjectivity is vital to science and scientists.

The oft repeated - ~"Thats not science, its bysis". Objectivity is science. I'm saying that subjectivity is absolutly necessary in science.- Looking for a quick debate- No references necessary- First round is for acceptance Subjectivity refers to how someone's judgment is shaped by personal opinions and feelings instead of outside influences. Subjectivity is partially responsible for why one person loves an abstract painting while another person hates it.
THBT we should boycott the Beijing Olympics for security

It is not so much that China's booming economy is a threat, rather the negligence that China has shown towards its economy in the means of the exorbant amounts of pollution they produce that effects their own people and the world as a whole. For example, China has polluted its own lakes, streams and rivers all for the sake of development without heeding to the will of the Chinese people that happen to live by these water sources. Furthermore, they exacerbate the air pollution problem by cutting down trees and allowing the formidable Chinese deserts to create more air pollution that affect their Asian and European neighbors alike. Moreover, the Olympic Committee expressed grave concerns about the quality of the air in China as it would cause adverse health problems to the many tourists visiting China. What kind of message is China sending to the world in an Olympic events that promotes mutual respect for the citizens of the world when they choose to ignore the plights of their own people? How much can we believe of a nation that purged its brilliant scholars, its doctors and other academia during the Cultural Revolution? It must also be noted that China's military posturing and its rapid expansion of its naval fleet, the creation of satelite destroying missiles, the development of a rapid response fighter plane and its continued hostile tones towards Taiwan do not create a message of friendship of which the Olympics wish to convey. If anything, the above examples indicate that at some point China wish to flex its military capabilities in one manner or another. It must also be expressed that the Tianammen Square Massacre of 1989 has not been forgotten. Any nation that uses its military to squash the peaceful protests for freedom is a nation that does not wish to engage in unity events. The thought of using tanks, armed troops and transport carriers to roll over, oppress, and decapitate students and professors should remind us that China will resort to force whenever they deem necessary. In conclusion, individuals as well as nations representing the voice of freedom and democracy must boycott the Olympics in China until they, the Chinese government has acknowledged the rights of their citizens as well as address the ever ominous pollution problem. In addition, until China creates an accurate account of their military expenditue of recent military hardware, nations can only assume that the Chinese plan to exercise their military capability sometime in the near future which run contrary to what the Olympoic and its organizers want toc create.
college athletes should be paid.

The NCAA as a whole makes over 6 billion dollars a year. The 2013 NCAA basketball tournement brought in 1.15 billion dollars in add revenue, 200 million more than the NBA playoffs that same year. The average NBA player can expect to earn 24.7 million over his 4.8 year career while the average player in college basketball can expect to earn 0 dollars. The top payed public employees in most states are collage coaches with many making millions of dollars a year. Coach K the head coach at Duke makes close to 10 million a year. The Duke athletic program brought in revenue of around 80 million dollars in a recent fiscal year, not one dollar way paid to any of it's athletes. College athletics is big business, it is absurd to think that the athletes deserve none of the income being generated from their hard work, blood, sweat and tears. Most athletes at the end of The year still end up paying around 3k in exspense not covered by their scholarships to attend school. It is true that many athletes receive full scholarships to participate in college sports but the value of their educations is greatly diminished due to the demands put upon them by their participation in sports. The average athletes spends just over 40 hours participating college athletics.
Birthright Citizenship

Hi I would like to start of by stating thank you to who ever accepts this debate. I am fairly new to this website so I ask my opponent for a good clean debate. I hope this will be of benefit to me and my opponent & I know it will be really fun. I tried this debate before with another person but he/she never rebut my cases, so I ask someone to take this debate and give me a challenge. Thank you.Debate: Birthright Citizenship - Should the right of citizenship for all children born in the United States, regardless of the immigration status of their parents, be removed?Definitions: Birthright Citizenship - refers to the citizenship granted to a person by virtue of the circumstances of his/her birth. Accordingly, any person born within the territory of the U.S. is granted citizenship by birth. A child born overseas to U.S. citizens also acquires a U.S. citizenship.Pro - I will choose Pro for this debate meaning I believe a child should be a citizen of the United States wether his parents are immigrants or not.Con - Will be chosen by my opponent for this debate. He will protect his case stating that a child should not become a United State citizen if his parents are illegal immigrants. Terms:1. For the sake of the well being of me and my opponent as well, I ask him/her to keep private matter to himself. If this debate has to do with his/her personal life I ask him/her to not bring it forward to this debate.2. I ask of him/her to think of this debate as only a debate and nothing else.3. I ask for my opponent to use great deal of grammar, as I will try as well and to use reliable sources. If I lose or win a debate I like to learn from them so I ask for my opponent who will accept this debate to take it serious and give it all he's/she's got as I will do the same.4. Have fun I want to enjoy myself as I am sure my opponent will love to enjoy him/her self as well.Outline:Round 1: Will be for acceptance and any questions or terms Con may have.Round 2 - 5: Will be presenting cases and rebuts. Good luck.
Teaching Creationism to Children is Child Abuse

Preface: - I shall remind the voters that the bop is on Pro to prove the affirmative of his resolution. Case/Rebuttals: Knowingly providing a foundation of knowledge based upon irrational and illogical information is the most sincere form of child abuse. - This is a bare assertion, contradicted by the fact that transferring knowledge, even the irrational kind, is not a form of child abuse in any way, for it is not a physical or sexual or emotional maltreatment of the child, nor is it necessarily neglect of the child! The Christian story of creation has absolutely no base in either mathematics or science. To willingly enforce a model as a base of knowledge that will be in conflict with future educational disciplines is tantamount to physically harming a child to hamper success in physical endeavours. - There are over 2 billion individual worldwide adhering to this ‘Christian Story’ [1], & they also constitute 3/4 of the US’s population [2]. & a great many number of these contributed immensely to Human Knowledge [3], not that any of this has to do anything with the resolution! Conclusion: - Pro has failed to uphold his BOP, as he provided no argument nor evidence to support his case. => Vote Con. Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...
The US should put less money into military and instead put more money into education and NASA

If it's hard for nasa to make a rocket then there's a problem there. Shouldn't they be smarter and should be easier for the people in nasa? Why should we give more money to people who can't make a rocket? All you have been doing is agreeing with me. Also you say the U.S. spends to much on the military and i clearly pointed out why. Don't you see the prices of the things they need? How can the U.S. spend less when the prices are so high? One bullet or gernade can make a diffrence in a death or life situation. Of course you would'nt uderstand unless you have been in war before. What's more important, exploring space, giving money to something broken, or to protect America? Without protection there wouldn't be nasa or education. Whenever you debate you need to specify on what you say. You said "building a rocket is harder than forming a military team". The way you used the word forming is a verb so that means creati g a military team. To make that team you need to create soilders. And how do you think you do that? The answer is by training soilders and they have to meet those standards. http://dictionary.reference.com... For some reason i forgot to post my source so here it is. http://www.bankruptingamerica.org... Again you are using opinion in your debate. "all those things seem important to me". They might be useful to you but not to the economy. A lot of school needs money, but again the problem is still how the schools get the money. The rovers exploring mars have done nothing but sent back photos of red dust over and over. What are the benifits in that? We know that its red, nothing new has been found. The mars rovers are a waste of money, they do the same thing over and over. The cost of a mars rover is $2.5 billion. Nasa spent that much money to put a camera on mars. I ask the voters to vote bases on the information that you have read and to keep biased feelings out to vote fairly.
The US should put less money into military and instead put more money into education and NASA

"It is not hard to make a rocket at all." Unless you work at NASA, I don't think you would understand the mechanics that go into making the rockets engines and thousands of intricate parts. They don't just slap fins and metal together. The process of building a rocket can take over a decade because of the process involved. This site offers insight on how hard it is to actually build a spaceshuttle: http://www.space.com... I would agree with you, guns and ammunition in general is expensive. The government has to take this in mind when sending military teams somewhere. They can't change the price of this material, so I don't see where your argument is. If anything, the information you gathered helps me considering the cost of sending out supplies is so expensive. I understand why military is expensive. By cutting back the funds, money that would've been spent on a grenade or bullet could go to children's education or exploring unknown parts of our solar system. I would think these things are more important. The navy seal information you gave me is vain. I know that it is hard to become a navy seal. What I meant is that it is not hard to take trained navy seals and tell them where to go/what to do. Since they are so well trained, this shouldn't be very hard for them to understand. First off, the NASA information you gave me at the end needs a source, for I don't know if that's even true. Secondly, all those things seem important to me except the 3D printer, which would probably go to more important things then printing pizza. Do you think the moon landing is a waste? Or the rovers exploring planets for our benefit right now? I will refer you to the list I included in my previous argument. I understand what a levy is, but by giving our education money, we can improve the standards and supplies we give the children. This money can also go to grants made available to schools who need it. They don't have to pass a levy to get a grant if they really need the funds.