Forensics?

[JahJahwarrior]

Anyone on here involved in forensics/debate? My school requires that we take a class on it, and just this year the teacher forced us to attend and compete in competitions. We had our first real competition today and I won first place in Extemp, first in original oratory and second in student congress.


Yes, I just created a thread to tell the world how much i kick butt! not really actually, I really am wondering if anyone else here does this stuff for fun. I don't not enjoy it, but I don't love it either. It's fun enough, but I don't like wasting a very good day for diving sitting in a room trying to point out to another "representative" that her ideas and arguments are bunk, that she is contradicting herself and is altogether confused. But hey, if it gets me a second place trophy, I guess I can do it.

 

[archman]

I'm wagering that everyone that clicks on this thread will think you're referring to either forensic science or forensic medicine.

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

i did.

 

[ItsBruce]

You may have missed a day of diving, but it was not wasted. That skill, if that is what you have -- as contrasted with your opponent's complete lack thereof -- could lead to employment that enables you to do lots of dives in lots of good places with lots of nice equipment.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

You should have seen how confused the class was for a day or two. "Oh cool, forensics! like CSI! I'm signing up!"

By day two, they had figured out that the class was not forensic science.

 

[mania]

I'm wagering that everyone that clicks on this thread will think you're referring to either forensic science or forensic medicine.

or forensic audit - which is my case


mania

 

[agilis]

It's kind of ironic that people who misinterpret the word 'forensics' are posting within a 'Forum'.
At the Jesuit high school I attended forensics was an honors class, and the best from that group formed the debating team. One of the standard excersizes was to state a proposition, like "There is no God". We were then expected to be able to effectively argue either side of the proposition. At the time of the debate, you would arbitrarily be assigned the pro or the con position. The debates could be one against one, or two opposing teams comprised of three debaters. Immediately after the initial debate there would be a second formal debate, with a reversal of positions. You would find youself arguing passionately for the position you had just been attacking. There were fairly stringent rules regarding style and substance, but the old Roman virtue of rhetorical persuasiveness was highly regarded. Consistency, remaining on point, direct and effective confrontation and refutation, preparation, anticipation of opposing arguments, logic, clarity, and organization of the argument were the major qualitative elements that I recall. The argument's subjective content did not matter at all, which was the reason for the switching of positions. If you can't argue either side, you are not a debater, you have not mastered forensics. It was drummed into us that an observer should not be able to tell what your personal opinion was. Personal opinions in the context of formal debate were valuless, and detrimental to the forensic art.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I don't hold quite that extreme of a view but yes, the art of it is to learn to think, which you do by learning to argue both sides of anyissue. It keeps me awake at night sometimes, going over arguments in my mind, but I've been doing that for years I really enjoy it, and at times it is quite difficult for me to argue one side of an issue. That really is due partly to an inability to think through the other side effectively: the problem is, the arguments for a side that I disagree with are hard to find, the easy ones to come up with are the easiest ones to prove illological, andit is very difficult to argue with premises that I know are illogical, even though if I argued them well enough to keep the other person from finding the holes I know are there, I could win

However, that is lincoln-douglas debate. then there is policy and public forum. Personally, I compete in speeches: extemp, where we get a question and have 30 minutes to come up with a 7minute speech, using only a tub full of articles that we have to compile. Also, original oratory, where you write your own speech and then give it. Student Congress is a mimicing of congress, where we present bills and give speeches to the affirmative and negative, we can amend, etc. My bill was passed, a bill which I argued against was not Four rounds of everything, only two of student congress.

It's changed somewhat the way I think about things, only helping me to debate. In the past, I have taken a course on logic. I'm also finding my goernment class to be very helpful in student congress (I was able to point out a bill that would have required amendments to the constitution) and a past class on worldviews helped me develop good ways of reading newspaper articles and things and really understanding them and worldview of the writer.

And I would not fault too greatly anyone who did not know the true meaning of the word forensics. To be honest, there are millions of words, and it would behard to know them all. If we can atleast be better with linguistics than Shakespeare's Dogberry (from Much Ado About Nothing) then we are doing fine. If we get too critical, we become incensed when people mispell things on forums or in emails. I'm no proponent of phrases such as LOL, but I won't get upset becuase I forgot to put ""s around it just then

 

[ItsBruce]

... That really is due partly to an inability to think through the other side effectively: the problem is, the arguments for a side that I disagree with are hard to find, the easy ones to come up with are the easiest ones to prove illological, andit is very difficult to argue with premises that I know are illogical, even though if I argued them well enough to keep the other person from finding the holes I know are there, I could win

I think it is unlikely that in a class you would be given a position that does not have good arguments on both sides. It is hard to find good arguments for a position with which you disagree. However, strength comes from being able to find good arguments for a position you don't like. Rest assured that someone who does like the position will find them. Only if you can anticipate them can you effectively challenge them.

Not to make your life and studies more challenging then necessary, but consider taking some classes in "Game Theory." When I was in college, was in its infancy, but those were some of my favorite classes and the ones that I find must useful when I frame or analyze arguments.

Also, in terms of making words do what you want them to do, consider reading a book called "The Annotated Alice." It is an annotation and analysiis of "Through The Looking Glass" (aka "Alice In Wonderland"). And, in terms of words, Humpty Dumpty said it all:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master–that’s all.”

 

[agilis]

My intent, JahJah Warrior, was not to be critical regarding word recognition when I wrote that understanding "forensics' only in its current pop culture context was ironic, and I certainly would not fault anyone for doing so. The irony I mentioned was in the fact that "forum", the Scuba Board vehicle all of us are using, and "forensic" are closely related words, really only variants, from the Latin for 'door', or 'gateway', originally implying an open market.
Word meanings change with popular use. It is, ultimately, only usage that defines a word's meaning. Thus, 'Chauvinism', meaning extreme patriotic nationalism (from the name of a fictitious Napoleonic general), has slowly morphed through the 1960s- invented "male chauvinism" back into just plain "chauvinism", but now meaning some form of 'sexism' to many people. This is just plain incorrect, but if enough people make the same mistake, it will become correct through usage. This is the same meaning-shift process that 'forensics' is now undergoing. Electronic media has greatly speeded up the process. Another example is 'fantastic'. It really means "fake, unbelievable" (fantasy). Use has already made it mean "something extremely good". Just like the word 'fabulous' .
Forensics as an art certainly includes extemporaneous speech preparation (oration is the art of actually speaking). Perhaps the finest example is Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which he wrote shortly before he spoke, on his way to a cemetery dedication for Civil War soldiers killed in battle:
"we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our poor power to add or detract"; and
"..the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion..".
What political leader today could write such lines, express such visions? The very ability to do so would probably eliminate them from the political process, voluntarily or otherwise.
Lincoln's short speech contains an overwhelming deathless eloquence. It was written on the back of an envelope, with scratch-outs and changes made minutes before he spoke.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates were not the kind of pure forensic excersizes I described. They definitely WERE public policy debates: they were political election debates.

The study of forensics, of public speaking, of logical argument and debate, was one of the central elements in a traditional classical education curriculum, formerly reserved for the elite. I think you are seeing why it is so essential, so valuable, so illuminating in every sense of that word.