Yes, I've read Plato already

November 17, 2007 10:03 AM

Help me find debates with a clear winner.

I'm looking for written or spoken debates or arguments, regardless of particulars, where someone prevailed through sheer strength of argument and debating competence, and even supporters of opposing viewpoints would concede one side "won that one". I'm not looking for a "professor versus four-year-old" mismatch, but something where argumentative skill was clearly on display.

posted by StrikeTheViol to writing & language (25 comments total)

Mondale vs. Reagan

Stockdale vs. Gore and Quail

Bentsen vs. Quail
posted by bingo at 10:20 AM on November 17, 2007

I don't know if this fits your criteria, considering Lincoln lost the Senate race (but won the Presidency), but the Lincoln-Douglas debates are pretty awesome, regardless.
posted by walla at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2007

The first Kerry-Gore debate in 2004.
posted by faceonmars at 11:08 AM on November 17, 2007

Um, I mean Kerry-Bush in 2004. Previewing is hard.
posted by faceonmars at 11:09 AM on November 17, 2007

Carville/Ricard, topic: "The role of government in supporting innovation in the field of biotechnology," Harrison College, 2003.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 11:10 AM on November 17, 2007

Noam vs whoever his opponent was, in "Manufacturing Consent"
posted by gmarceau at 11:13 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

The Bentsen-Quail debate was a classic; definitely what you're looking for.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:15 AM on November 17, 2007

I hope the misspelling of Dan Quayle was meant to be ironic.

Yes, Bentsen-Quayle is known for this moment.
posted by ALongDecember at 11:23 AM on November 17, 2007

"where someone prevailed through sheer strength of argument and debating competence"

I don't know if that's an accurate way to characterize many of the debates mentioned. On the contrary, it seems to me that many of the answers given are debates where someone prevailed through charisma and one-liners (e.g., Reagan/Mondale), or, alternately, thanks mainly to the sheer ineptitude of their opponents (e.g., Stockdale). When you're talking about American presidential debates, there isn't necessarily a lot of strong argument or competent debate on display.
posted by box at 11:27 AM on November 17, 2007

Gore vs. Perot on Larry King Live (transcript) was a turning point in the NAFTA debate and the highest rated show on basic cable until Monday Night Football moved to ESPN.
posted by ALongDecember at 11:28 AM on November 17, 2007

Odd. I just googled Bentsen vs. Quail and this very mefi thread is the first hit.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:39 AM on November 17, 2007

I wasn't really shooting for Presidential stuff, like box said, but some of the links look interesting anyway. More non-presidential stuff, preferably with links?
posted by StrikeTheViol at 11:45 AM on November 17, 2007

Foci, that's because it's Quayle.
posted by crashlanding at 11:46 AM on November 17, 2007

The "Great Debate" at the Council of Lhasa between Indian advocates of gradual enlightenment and Chinese Chan monks advocating sudden enlightenment resulted in the expulsion of the Zen team from Tibet. The persuasive Indian monk Kamalaśīla was allegedly assassinated for his pains by some rather narked and not very compassionate and dispassionate Chinese sore losers. Some think the story apocryphal but a debate of some sort took place and gradualists prevailed. The best known Tibetan account of the debate is in Pudön's History of Buddhism.
posted by Abiezer at 12:25 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Check out the Intelligence Squared US debates. The debaters are experts of relative qualification and are complied into panels - one for the proposition and one against. The audience is polled before and after each debate, and some have clear winners (as evidenced by percentage change in audience voting). You can listen to full or edited debate broadcasts. The proposition "should we welcome undocumented immigrants?" had a fairly clear winner by the above change-in-audience-vote standard.
posted by ncc1701d at 1:01 PM on November 17, 2007

David Lange, Prime Minister of New Zealand, argues that Nuclear weapons are morally indefensible at the Oxford Union. Gives me goosebumps.
posted by Happy Dave at 1:08 PM on November 17, 2007

And, of course, the remix of the same speech.
posted by Happy Dave at 1:11 PM on November 17, 2007

Brian Mulroney v. John Turner, 1984. (Canadian federal leaders' debate).

"You had an option, sir, you could have said 'no.'"
posted by ewiar at 2:15 PM on November 17, 2007

Link to Mulroney v. Turner
posted by ewiar at 2:16 PM on November 17, 2007

Inherit the Wind (based on the Scopes Trial).
posted by kirkaracha at 2:39 PM on November 17, 2007

The Wiberforce-Huxley debate on Origin of Species.

From the linked article:
Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, attempted to pour scorn on Darwin's Origin of Species at a meeting of the British Association in Oxford on 30 June 1860, and had the tables turned on him by T. H. Huxley.....Even churchmen concede that it was a disastrous defeat.
posted by Jakey at 9:25 AM on November 18, 2007

Jakey, if you had bothered to read beyond the first paragraph of the 'linked article', you would have found that it was actually attacking the view that the debate was a clear victory for Huxley and a disastrous defeat for Wilberforce. Lucas's conclusion is that both participants performed well and that the debate was inconclusive. Moral: RTFA.

Some better examples of debates with a clear winner:

Edward Gibbon's debate with his opponents over his history of the rise of Christianity. He was attacked by Henry Davis in An Examination of the 15th and 16th Chapters of Mr Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1778), and replied in A Vindication of Some Passages in the 15th and 16th Chapters of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1779). Gibbon's reply was so crushing that it completely silenced his opponents.

The Lewis-Anscombe debate at the Oxford Socratic Club in 1948, where C.S. Lewis tried to defend Christian supernaturalism and was comprehensively defeated by Elizabeth Anscombe. Lewis himself wrote afterwards that she had 'obliterated me as an apologist'.
posted by verstegan at 1:12 PM on November 18, 2007

Yeah, verstegan, that's my bad. I couldn't find a transcript, so I linked the article with the best references for further reading. Maybe I should have checked out the actual content of said article :)

Nevertheless, it's fair to say that Huxley is generally regarded as the clear winner of the debate, as he was at the time. The argument of the attached article is a minority position.
posted by Jakey at 1:23 PM on November 18, 2007

Jakey, I suggest you read Lucas's article (and the associated articles here, here and here) before commenting any further. It is not true to say that Huxley was regarded 'at the time' as the clear winner of the debate. (In retrospect, yes; but 'at the time', no.) This is not a 'minority position', it is widely accepted by historians of nineteenth-century science.
posted by verstegan at 2:28 PM on November 18, 2007

versetgan, I checked out your articles and a couple more, and you know what? You're right. It seems that the legend of the crushing victory only arose around 20-30 years after the debate (when there was much more data to reinforce Huxley's position) and the reality of the relatively low key immediate aftermath has only really been acknowledged properly in the last 10-15 years. That's the great thing about this place - you learn something new every day. Thanks!
posted by Jakey at 1:45 PM on November 19, 2007