My 99th Debate: Kids and Corporal Punishment

Thanks again to Garbanza for a great debate. At this time, I will discuss the BOP issue, and then I will address Pro's case.PRO's CASE-- Burden of Proof --Pro writes, "BoP naturally falls on the person with the positive assertion." There are two main types of claims typically up for debate: positive and normative. Normative statements are about what should be, whereas "positive statements focus around what is." [23] The resolution is a positive claim. It is asking whether something is beneficial--i.e., it is asking "what is" the case. If the resolution were whether corporal punishment should be used, then it would be a normative claim, because it is asking "what should be." Thus, Pro has the BOP for two reasons: (a) she accepted the sole BOP when she accepted the debate, and (b) because Pro agrees that people defending positive claims ought to have the BOP, and Pro is defending the positive claim.Thus, Pro needs to show that (a) corporal punishment has benefits to the child, (b) that the benefits are more than (not equal to or less than) the harms, and (c) that the benefits Pro is claiming are actually caused by the use of corporal punishment. If Pro fails to do any one of these things, Pro hasn't met her BOP, and has lost the debate.-- Parental Ignorance Theory --Ad populumPro suggests that there are some topics which require or permit ad populum-style arguments. Pro never denies that her arguments are ad populum, she merely contends that it doesn't matter if they are, because under this type of resolution, ad populum arguments make sense.Pro's analysis of the ice cream is flawed for several reasons. First, it is a false analogy. Asking which ice cream is more delicious is asking, inherently, a question of opinion. There is no real objective way to assess deliciousness, since what I find delicious others might not; it's completely arbitrary. I LOVE strawberry ice cream, but most people I know would prefer vanilla; we just have different tastes. Thus, the question of the most delicious ice cream is indeed a question of preference. We measure such opinion through polls, and so popular opinion matters. Similarly, if we were to debate "Is Hillary Clinton more Popular than Mitt Romney," we would necessarily have to use ad populum arguments because of the nature of the question. Yet, the resolution is not a question of opinion, as it can be answered through non-opinion based mechanisms. For example, the question "does solar energy save money" can be answered through quantifiable statistics and mathematical/financial analyses. It would be absurd to take a poll of people and use that as evidence one way or the other, because those people's opinions are not nearly as credible as the hard evidence. This goes back to what I said about Galileo before--that just because most people believe X, that doesn't make X true. Regarding the resolution at hand, since Pro could call upon statistics or other types of evidence (even expert opinions are more reliable than those of lay people), and therefore it does not make sense for her to use corporal punishments general popularity, namely among lay people, to assert that it is beneficial. What is the ultimate takeaway here? This resolution is not the type of resolution that can be supported effectively by ad populum arguments. In fact, using ad populum arguments in this context is a fallacy, and so ad populum claims should be summarily dismissed. The opinions of people do not prove that it is beneficial, hard evidence does. So, since Pro hasn't offered any hard evidence, she can't prove corporal punishment is beneficial.Secondly, Pro accuses me of an appeal to authority--but this is not a problem in this case. I gave three reasons earlier in this debate to prefer expert opinion to lay opinion; I will repeat them here: "(1) parents are not objective observers of their own behaviors, and so while they can report on some objective facts (e.g. whether they use corporal punishment or not), they are not qualified to make statements regarding subjective conclusions (e.g. whether their disciplinary practices were effective); (2) parents, unlike experts, have not received the training to be able to effectively make credible claims of this nature or to evaluate statistical data; and (3) parent's only have a limited set of data to evaluate, whereas researchers can tap into much larger numbers to more accurately gauge trends." in fact, Pro DROPPED all of these three points. Remember, as I just explained this resolution is not one that can be affirmed through simple majority opinion; it requires an analysis of the science of psychology as well as of the hard data that has been collected. Experts are best positioned to understand those data and the psychological concepts behind them. Therefore, we have good reason to value the opinion of experts over the opinion of parents. It could even be said that Pro is committing an appeal to non-authorities, whereby she incorrectly asserts that parents are authorities on this topic, when, for the reasons listed above, they are not. I think Pro puts it best when she herself writes: "It's true that a majority of parents around the world using corporal punishment and/or approving of its use is not proof that it benefits children"Appeals to authority are only fallacies when: (a) there is no reason to prefer their opinion to that of a laymen's (e.g. the ice cream example), or (b) we assume that the experts are true just because they are experts, without looking at why they might come to their conclusions. In this case, my argument meets neither (a) nor (b) as I have justified why we should prefer expert opinion and as I have show studies and discussed the psychology behind their reasoning. Thus, I am not committing a fallacy, whereas Pro his (ad populum).Ipse DixitNone of Pro's arguments here (i.e. the slavery case and Whaley) really clash with either of the two points I brought up. My points were (1) parents may act in ways they believe to be in a child's best interest, but that isn't the same as acting in the child's best interests; particularly, parents may act in ways that bring immediate benefit, without realizing or properly weighing the long-term harms thereof, and (2) the cognitive dissonance hinders parent's ability to realize the harmfulness of their actions. That is why we should defer to experts, because they are best positioned to make these kinds of decisions, and because the correlational evidence strongly supports the conclusions they have made.-- Parenting Styles --Pro DROPS that authoritarian parenting does not necessarily imply the use of corporal punishment. So, even if you buy that authoritarian styles may be good in some cultures, you are given no reason to believe from this study that corporal punishment is beneficial (as that leap would employ the fallacy of division.)Cherry-PickingThe earlier study I cited [15] directly contradicts what Pro says Lansford is saying about the sociocultural differences. But, even if you buy that some cultures may derive benefits from such practices, that doesn't prove that "on balance," i.e. for most people, it is beneficial. Moreover though, Pro admits that Lansford acknowledges that there is little evidence for the benefit of corporal punishment, and calls for a global ban on the practice. Lack of EvidenceI explained last round how my studies could indeed control for variables even though they were correlational. So, if corporal punishment leads to bad outcomes even after controlling for things like socioeconomic status, natural aggression in the child, home life, or race, then (a) it doesn't seem imperialistic to draw the conclusions I am drawing, and (b) the correlations suddenly seem far more credible, and while they can't name a cause, they have ruled out other potential causes that Pro has suggested, further strengthening the argument that it is corporal punishment itself that leads to the bad outcomes I have discussed.VOTING ISSUESI think we can break this debate down fairly simply. The key question we need answered is whether Pro has met her BOP. If not, she has lost the debate, and a Con ballot is in order. Earlier, I identified three resolutional criteria we can use to measure whether Pro has met her BOP; let's review two of those now: (a) corporal punishment has benefits to the child, (b) that the benefits are more than (not equal to or less than) the harms. I will make these two of my three voting issues.1. Corporal Punishment Does Not Benefit the Child A vast number of correlational studies done on the subject show strong negative correlations between corporal punishment and negative outcomes (e.g. increased aggression, poor mental health, physical injury, etc.) Experts like the APA, UNICEF, and the NASW, who are better positioned to analyze the facts, agree (even as Pro's Langford source does) that corporal punishment should not be encouraged and is, on balance, a bad thing. This again only bolsters the case against corporal punishment, and it underscores that it is probably not beneficial. Pro has failed to fulfill this element of her burden. 2. Benefits vs. Harms Pro has suggested that in some cultures corporal punishment may be useful. I have offered a study that contradicts this, and Pro's own sources waffle on this issue. Even if it were beneficial in some cultures, that doesn't mean it is good "on balance;" Pro has failed to show the scope of any potential benefits, so she has failed to show that these benefits apply "on balance." Pro has failed to fulfill this element of her burden too. 3. Fallacies Pro's case is riddled with fallacies (bare assertion fallacies, false analogies, fallacies of division, and ad populum arguments.) Even if my case has holes, her case is so reliant on flawed logic, it cannot successfully affirm. Please VOTE CON!SOURCES23 - http://www.ehow.com...