An Ethical Debate: Measuring Truthiness In Parliamentary Debate

Location

CSU 201

Start Date

23-4-2007 1:00 PM

End Date

23-4-2007 2:30 PM

Student's Major

Communication Studies

Student's College

Arts and Humanities

Mentor's Name

James Dimock

Mentor's Department

Communication Studies

Mentor's College

Arts and Humanities

Description

The practice of competitive debate has, since Ancient Greece, been justified as a way of developing critical thinking, public speaking and civic understanding and the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) embraces that vision of debate. Founded in 1992, the NPDA strives to promote eivic engagement, leadership and the development of argumentation and public speaking skills through competition in organized, intercollegiate debates. Central to the NPDA's mission is the belief speakers should be able to debate extemporaneously, without reliance on evidence and files, about a wide variety of subjects and thus in addition to other benefits of debate, it encourages student competitors to be informed and knowledgeable on a wide variety of topics. As Rutledge (2002) has observed, however, the educational foundation of parliamentary debate is threatened by lying. If student competitors do not know about current events but actually only claims to know, then parliamentary debate not only has no educational value but also actually teaches people how to lie, trick and deceive, practices, which do not support democracy but actually threaten it. Our research answered Rutledge's call to see if lying is rampant in the NPDA. This would test the viability of NPDA debate as an educational tool.

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Apr 23rd, 1:00 PM Apr 23rd, 2:30 PM

An Ethical Debate: Measuring Truthiness In Parliamentary Debate

CSU 201

The practice of competitive debate has, since Ancient Greece, been justified as a way of developing critical thinking, public speaking and civic understanding and the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) embraces that vision of debate. Founded in 1992, the NPDA strives to promote eivic engagement, leadership and the development of argumentation and public speaking skills through competition in organized, intercollegiate debates. Central to the NPDA's mission is the belief speakers should be able to debate extemporaneously, without reliance on evidence and files, about a wide variety of subjects and thus in addition to other benefits of debate, it encourages student competitors to be informed and knowledgeable on a wide variety of topics. As Rutledge (2002) has observed, however, the educational foundation of parliamentary debate is threatened by lying. If student competitors do not know about current events but actually only claims to know, then parliamentary debate not only has no educational value but also actually teaches people how to lie, trick and deceive, practices, which do not support democracy but actually threaten it. Our research answered Rutledge's call to see if lying is rampant in the NPDA. This would test the viability of NPDA debate as an educational tool.

Recommended Citation

Randall, Joshua and David Brennan. "An Ethical Debate: Measuring Truthiness In Parliamentary Debate." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 23, 2007.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2007/oral-session-06/4