To Debate an Issue

Moderator: Welcome to today’s debate, which focuses on the following topic: “Resolved: The state should budget $10 million to develop a wind farm in Gannet Valley.” The team to my right will begin our debate with five minutes of opening remarks in favor of this resolution.

Latrisha Evans: Thank you, Mr. Kao. Our world faces an energy crisis. Growing populations and growing demand mean we will need more energy in the future, not less. Most experts agree that we have reached “peak oil,” and that the fossil fuels yet to be tapped are more difficult to get, such as oil-sand deposits in Canada and oil reserves beneath the melting Arctic ice sheet. And let’s think about that melting ice sheet and other environmental damage caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon-neutral, clean, and renewable energy sources offer a compelling solution to many of these problems. A wind farm in Gannet Valley would be one way for our state to move into the future.

Let’s consider the proposed site. . . . (She continues.)

Moderator: Your five minutes are up for opening remarks, and now we turn to the opposing team for two minutes of rebuttal.

Wesley Keonig: Thank you, Mr. Kao, and thank you, Latrisha, for your opening comments. Though I agree with many of the problems that Latrisha pointed out, I disagree that an expensive wind farm in Gannet Valley is the best answer for our state. To start with, the notion that a wind farm is an environmentally friendly alternative is ignoring the impact of windmills on bird populations. Take, for example, the Maple Ridge facility in New York, which killed an estimated 2,000 to 4,000 birds and bats during a five-month period. That much damage was done by 120 turbines. The proposed wind farm in Gannet Valley would have a similar number.

Then, let’s consider the fact that Gannet Valley is part of a state park system. The wind farm would be visible for 10 miles around from the peaks of the two mountains on either side. . . . (He continues.)

Moderator: Thank you for your two-minute rebuttal. Now we turn to another member of the opposing team for five minutes of opening remarks, which will be followed by a rebuttal from the team in favor. . . .

Lincoln: Mr. Gaddafi, let us consider the reasons for the two rebellions. The southern states rebelled because they feared that I would abolish slavery. The National Transitional Council rebelled because of your repressive 40-year regime enslaving an entire population.

Gaddafi: My regime made Libya a wealthy nation.

Lincoln: Your regime made Libya a state sponsor of terror and a rogue nation.

Gaddafi: You are talking of events in the 1980s. By the 1990s, I had made amends for our sponsorship of terrorism and had dismantled our weapons of mass destruction. After 9/11, I was an ally of the United States in its war on terror.

Lincoln: But when the NTC rebelled, you attacked civilian populations.

Gaddafi: What do you call the Siege of Vicksburg, Mr. Lincoln? And you cannot argue that you fought to free the slaves. To start, you fought to preserve the union at all cost. You said that if you could save the union without freeing any slaves, you would do it. You were only trying to preserve your own power, just as I was.

Lincoln: Not my own power, sir, but the power of a democratic form of government. The South seceded even before I took the oath of office. And four years later, I would have handed over the reins of government to a successor if the people had chosen someone else.

Gaddafi: Let’s compare my supposed “scorched earth” policies with true scorched earth—Sherman’s burning of Atlanta on his march to the sea. If an International Criminal Court had existed in your time, you and Grant and Lee would have been charged with crimes against humanity.

Lincoln: A kind of ICC did exist in my time. Britain, France, and the rest of Europe watched the Civil War closely and were contemplating intervention on behalf of the South. But when I made the Emancipation Proclamation, changing the focus of the war from Union to abolition, the international community decided it would not come in on the side of slavery. . . .

Isaac Newton: But string theory is pure mathematics. It cannot be tested, and so it cannot be disproved, and so it is not scientific.

Hawking: Mathematics is the language of the universe. If it can combine quantum physics and general relativity—two theories supported by galaxies of evidence—I will take the mathematics.

Galileo Galilei: String theory works only if many additional dimensions exist on the quantum scale, dimensions that are so tightly “rolled up” that they can never be observed.

Hawking: And yet the math describes what we see.

Galileo: In my day, astronomers predicted the movements of the planets using elaborate mathematical models that included cycles and epicycles. The elaborate math did describe the phenomena really well, but the math was wrong because it was based on a geocentric universe. Once we moved the sun to the center of the solar system and allowed planets to follow elliptical orbits, all those complex epicycles vanished, and the math became simple.

Hawking: So, are you saying that even though the math describes what we are seeing, it may not capture the basic reality of what is going on?

Newton: That’s exactly right. And I think we have the same problem with quantum physics itself. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and SchrÖdinger’s Cat describe the quantum fuzziness that we see experimentally. We see that our observations of the quantum world change that world, but there’s no explanation how our intentionality would do so.

Hawking: Are you suggesting that quantum physics has been off track for the last hundred years?

Newton: I’m suggesting that, when we have an explanation that describes observations but has some hidden mechanism or can’t be tested, the theory doesn’t get at root causes.

Galileo: It may just be prolonging a mistaken assumption, such as the idea that the Earth is the center of the universe. . . .