My 99th Debate: Kids and Corporal Punishment

Thanks again to Garbanza. As per the agreed structure, I will use this round to address Pro's R2 comments in order to defend my case.CON's CASE-- The Resolution --My opponent does not contest my interpretation of the BOP and of the phrase "on balance" in the resolution. Please extend analysis. Pro does discuss how something might benefit both the child and the parent. Certainly, actions of this nature occur, but my point was not that any action that benefited incidentally the parent was somehow irrelevant. My point was that something has weight in this debate only insofar as it benefits the child. For instance, if Pro showed us 10 examples, and in each, parents received 60% of the benefit, and children received 40%, and I showed you 10 examples with the opposite ratio, assuming all else was equal, my examples would outweigh Pro's examples. This is because we are assessing how corporal punishment affects the child, and so while there may be positive impacts regarding the parents, any discussion of those impacts would be red-herrings in this debate.But, Pro's thoughts here are interesting, in that we can extrapolate that parents may have ulterior motives to using corporal punishment; i.e. it is easy for parents to employ corporal punishment to ensure quick obedience, and so they may employ it for their own convenience, vice for any benefits it may or may not pose for the child. Again, this just is another line of reasoning undermining Pro's core claim that most parents act in their children's best interests. Parents may be acting in what they falsely believe to be in their children's best interests or they may be acting out of convenience to themselves or out of some combination thereof, but we cannot simply assume, as Pro does, that parents are indeed acting in their children's best interests when it comes to corporal punishment.Pro then advances the following argument: "that's enough to accept that corporal punishment benefits children in the absence of convincing evidence to the contrary." But that is not the way this debate is structured. Pro has the sole BOP. So even if I showed no compelling evidence to the contrary, as long as Pro had no compelling evidence of her own, she would still lose the debate. She has to prove the resolution true; I do not have to prove the resolution is false. I just have to prevent Pro from showing that the resolution is true.-- Experiment Design --Sure, a correlational study doesn't establish causation, but taken in tandem with expert opinion on the subject, it does establish a strong case that corporal punishment is the likely cause, and thus not beneficial to children. Consider, I find that there is a high correlation between dropping out of high school and low wages later in life. This experiment doesn't prove causation, but if I also pair this evidence with expert testimony about how dropping out has an adverse impact on your job prospects, common sense seems to indicate that the former is likely to cause the latter. I would suggest that in the absence of any compelling confounding variables presented by Pro, that we can conclude, based on the evidence I already introduced, that corporal punishment is most likely the cause of the adverse effects I mentioned. I'll get into this more as I go on.Moreover, inasmuch as Pro has the BOP, it is her job to establish the causality of benefits more so than it is mine to show the causality of harms. If Pro is unable to show that corporal punishment causes benefits for/to the child, than Pro has lost.I think it is also important to note now that it is possible in some types of correlational studies to control for variables. [17, 18, 19, 20] While I am by no means a statistician, it does seem to stand to reason that correlational studies can control for variables by excluding, manipulating, or keeping constant a certain set of data. "Partial correlation analysis involves studying the linear relationship between two variables after excluding the effect of one or more independent factors...The partial correlation studied between two variables by keeping the third variable constant is called a first order co-efficient, as one variable is kept constant...The partial correlation analysis assumes great significance in cases where the phenomena under consideration have multiple factors influencing them, especially in physical and experimental sciences, where it is possible to control the variables and the effect of each variable can be studied separately." [21]Therefore, it is possible that some of my correlational studies have controlled for confounding variables. The presence of confounding variables is one of two main arguments against my studies, the other being a lack of causation. I have now addressed, in big-picture format, both of these concerns. -- Two Children --Pro writes: "He learns that there are three ways to escape punishment...2. avoid authority; 3. be the authority." In other words, corporal punishment doesn't instill respect for rules as such as long as one can avoid being caught and/or one is powerful enough to obviate any penalty. Those are not lessons we want to pass on to our children--we want to develop our children into moral human beings, not conniving human beings that have no qualms breaking the rules when they think it's smart to do so.Pro is also oversimplifying what my "sources are talking about." My sources note that corporal punishment teaches people to be victims, it promotes unquestioning acceptance of authority, it promotes a person's view of society as being threatening (leading to feelings of isolation, loneliness, etc.), it impedes parent-child communication, and it tells kids that violence is okay as long as you can get away with it. [5]Pro also notes that, "It really isn't obvious whether Child A or Child B benefits more." Well, it is Pro's job to show that Child A does benefit more. If she fails to do that, she has not upheld her burden. This sentence seems almost a tacit admission of the fact that this example she is drawing does nothing to help her uphold her BOP within this round.-- Propaganda --Pro has no evidence that more money is actually spent on corporal punishment research at UNICEF than on co-sleeping. Perhaps the abundance of reports reflects experts' concern that the former can lead to physical as well as emotion injuries to the child, whereas the scope of the possible harms isn't as great or severe as in the latter. But really, this is just a red-herring, and the impact of this point is never mentioned within the debate. Without any visible, weighable impact, this argument is irrelevant within the context of our discourse.Again, preferences don't equate to real benefits, nor do semantics have any real bearing on the issue at hand.-- Racism --Since Pro doesn't really explain the scope of this argument, again, and fails to mention what impact it has, it is unclear what, if any relevance, the "save the children" example really has on the debate. Let's stick to relevant details, not red-herrings.-- Summarization --Correlational Studies have found all that Corporal punishment is related to: 1. Higher levels of aggression2. Higher levels of criminality3. Poorer mental health4. Reduced gray matter in the prefrontal lobe5. Lower educational performance6. Inability to adjust to the adult world7. More Physical Injury8. Higher rates of Unsafe and Violent Sex9. More Antisocial Behavior10. And greater tolerance for using violence against others. These are all significant negative impacts. My two primary studies [2, 3] both controlled for potential confounding variables, further increasing the likelihood of their accuracy and of a direct connect between corporal punishment and the outcomes listed above. Ultimately, the sheer weight of the evidence is astounding, as is the consensus amongst all of these studies.Various expert groups agree that corporal punishment is detrimental: 1. American Academy of Pediatrics2. UNICEF3. National Association of Social Workers 4. American Psychoanalytic Association5. OCHR6. American Psychiatric Association [22] Given that not only the studies I cited strongly point to corporal punishment having ill-effects, but also because expert analysis and opinion corroborates these studies, I think, after a preponderance of the evidence, we can conclude that corporal punishment is not beneficial for children.Also, please note that many of Pro's assertions throughout this debate have merely been unwarranted claims or opinions. We cannot give much, if any, weight to such statements because they could just as easily be false as true. Thank you. I now turn the floor back over to Garbanza. I would kindly remind her that R4 is her last chance to post, and that in R5 she should merely type "pass" or "no round as agree upon" or something of that nature.SOURCES17 - http://en.wikipedia.org... 18 - http://www.psychwiki.com...19 - http://people.uncw.edu...20 - http://support.sas.com...21 - https://explorable.com...22 - http://www.apa.org...