Affirmative Brief

Joshua Mirth PARADE, Wisconsin
2009-2010 NCFCA Lincoln-Douglas

Debate
Affirmative
Brief
Resolved: That competition is
superior to cooperation as a means
of achieving excellence.
Affirmative Brief
Joshua R. Mirth
Affirmative Brief
Table of Contents
Definitions.............................................................................................................................................4
Competition:................................................................................................................................4
Superior: .....................................................................................................................................4
Cooperation: ...............................................................................................................................4
Cooperate: ..................................................................................................................................5
Means: ........................................................................................................................................5
Mean: .........................................................................................................................................5
Achieve: .....................................................................................................................................5
Excellence: ..................................................................................................................................5
Applications:.........................................................................................................................................6
Capitalism Good / Socialism Bad................................................................................................6
Debate........................................................................................................................................12
Education...................................................................................................................................13
IGMc..........................................................................................................................................18
Science.......................................................................................................................................19
Sports.........................................................................................................................................21
Affirmative Brief
Definitions
Competition:
The act or action of seeking to gain what another is seeking to gain at the same time and
usually under or as if under fair or equitable rules and circumstances: a common struggle
especially among individuals of relatively equal standing. - Webster's New International
Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged
The act of seeking, or endeavoring to gain, what another is endeavoring to gain, at the same time;
rivalry; mutual strife for the same object; also, strife for superiority; as the competition of two
candidates for an office, or of two poets for superior reputation. - Noah Webster's 1828
Dictionary
The act or process of competing : rivalry: as a : the effort of two or more parties acting
independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable
terms b : active demand by two or more organisms or kinds of organisms for some
environmental resource in short supply - Merriam Webster Online Dictionary
Compete (root of competition): [to]engage in a contest; measure oneself against others -

Princeton Wordnet
"Competition is an open market process of discovery and adjustment, under conditions of

uncertainty, that can include interfirm rivalry as well as interfirm cooperation." - Dominick
Armentano ( professor of economics emeritus at the University of Hartford, expert on antitrust
policy and insurance regulation, and author) Antitrust: The Case for Repeal, 1986
Superior:
Situated higher up or farther from a bottom or base. Of higher degree or rank: taking
precedence: of a higher order, nature, or kind. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd
Edition, Unabriged
Higher or greater in excellence; surpassing others in the greatness, goodness or value of any
quality; as a man of superior merit, of superior bravery, of superior talents or understanding, of
superior accomplishments. - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary
Cooperation:
The act of cooperating: a condition marked by cooperating: a joint operation: common effort or
labor. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged
To work or act together toward a common end or purpose. - The American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language
Affirmative Brief Definitions Definitions

Cooperate:
To act or work with another or others to a common end: operate jointly. - Webster's New
International Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged
Means:
Third person singular form of mean (verb). - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd
Edition, Unabriged
Mean:
Something intervening, intermediate, or intermediary. Something by the use or help of which a
desired end is attained or made more likely: an agent, tool, device, measure, plan, or policy for
accomplishing or furthering a purpose. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition,
Unabriged
Achieve:
To bring to a successful conclusion: carry out successfully: accomplish. To cause to end: make
to cease: bring about the end of. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition,
Unabriged
To gain or obtain, as the result of exertion. - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary
Excellence:
The quality of being excellent: the state of possessing good qualities in an eminent degree: an
excellent or valuable quality. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged
An [sic] valuabale [sic] quality; any thing highly laudable, meritorious or virtuous, in persons, or
valuable and esteemed, in things. (Brackets added) - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary
Affirmative Brief Definitions Definitions

Applications:
Capitalism Good / Socialism Bad

Competition improves efficiency and frees up resources
Johan Norberg, a fellow at the Swedish think tank Timbro, CATO INSTITUTE, “In Defense of Global
Capitalism”, p. 129, 2003
A company, a region, or a country specializes where it has comparative advantages and can
therefore generate the greatest value. Capital and labor from older, less competitive sectors are
transferred to newer, more dynamic ones. That means that a country switching to a more free-
trade-friendly policy rises to a higher level of production and prosperity, and can therefore
anticipate a substantial acceleration of growth for at least the first few years. But economic
openness also leads to an enduring effort to improve production, because foreign competition
forces firms to be as good and cheap as possible, and this leaves consumers free to choose goods
and services from the seller making the best offer. As production in established industries
becomes ever more efficient, resources are freed up for investment in new methods, inventions,
and products. This same argument supports competition generally; it simply extends competition
to even bigger fields, thus making it more intensive.
Capitalism is essential for providing basic necessities—proves the system can meet needs and
won’t inevitably collapse.
Peter Saunders, professor emeritus at the Centre for Independent Studies and Adjunct Professor at the
Australian Graduate School of Management. He was previously of University of Sussex in England,
WHY CAPITALISM IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL, 2007, http://www.cis.org.au/POLICY/summer%2007-
08/saunders_summer07.html
No socioeconomic system can guarantee people a good life. All we can reasonably ask of any society is the
conditions that will enable us to construct happy and worthwhile lives for ourselves. On this test,
capitalism passes with flying colours. A modern capitalist country like Australia guarantees
necessities like food and shelter. By enforcing a clear system of private property rights, it offers
individuals security. It allows people to interact freely, forming family ties, friendship groups, and
communities of common interest; and it maximises opportunities for people to realise their potential
through hard work and innovation. These are the conditions that Abraham Maslow identified as essential for humans
to satisfy their core needs. If these conditions are in place, as they are in modern, capitalist countries,
no individual can reasonably claim that external conditions have prevented them from pursuing
happiness.(20)Traditional critics of capitalism, like Marx, argued that these preconditions of human happiness could not be
satisfied in a capitalist society. Marx’s theory of the ‘immiseration of the proletariat’ held that capitalism
couldn’t even guarantee provision of food and shelter, for mass poverty, misery, ignorance, and squalor were
the inevitable consequence of the accumulation of wealth by a tiny capitalist class.(21) We now know that Marx was
spectacularly wrong. Working people today do not just earn a good wage; they own comfortable
homes, have shares in the companies that employ them, go to university, win entry to the
professions, set up businesses, and run for high office. The western ‘working class’ (to the extent that such a
thing still exists) has been so busy expanding its horizons that it has quite forgotten about its historic mission of overthrowing
Affirmative Brief Applications: Applications:

capitalism.
The idea of a widening gap between the rich and the poor is wrong—two reasons
There are two reasons why this objection to globalization does not hold up. First, even if this
were true it would not matter very much. If everyone is coming to be better off, what does it
matter that the improvement comes faster for some than for others? Surely the important thing is
for everyone to be as well off as possible, not whether one group is better off than another. Only
those who consider wealth a greater problem than poverty can find a problem in some becoming
millionaires while others grow wealthier from their own starting points. It is better to be poor in
the inegalitarian United States, where the poverty line for individuals in 2001 was about $9,039
per year, than to be equal in countries like Rwanda, where in 2001 GDP per capita (adjusted for
purchasing power) was $1,000, or Bangladesh ($1,750), or Uzbekistan ($2,500). 20 Often the
reason why gaps have widened in certain reforming countries, such as China, is that the towns
and cities have grown faster than the countryside. But given the unprecedented poverty reduction
this has entailed in both town and country, can anyone wish that this development had never
happened?
The gap between the rich and the poor is declining because of globalization
the Norwegian Institute for Foreign Affairs investigated global inequality by means of
A report from
contrary to the conventional wisdom, inequality
figures adjusted for purchasing power. Their data show that,
between countries has been continuously declining ever since the end of the 1970s. This decline was
especially rapid between 1993 and 1998, when globalization really gathered speed. 22 More recently, similar research by
Columbia University development economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin has confirmed those findings. When the UNDP's own
numbers are adjusted for purchasing power, Sala-i-Martin found that world inequality declined sharply by any of the common
ways of measuring it. 23 Bhalla and Sala-i-Martin also independently found that if we focus on inequality between
persons, rather than inequality between countries, global inequality at the end of 2000 was at its
lowest point since the end of World War II. Estimates that compare countries rather than
individuals, as both authors note, grossly overestimate real inequality because they allow gains for
huge numbers of people to be outweighed by comparable losses for far fewer. Country
aggregates treat China and Grenada as data points of equal weight, even though China's
population is 12,000 times Grenada's. Once we shift our focus to people rather than nations, the evidence is
overwhelming that the past 30 years have witnessed a global equalization. 24 Comparing just the richest and poorest tenths,
inequality has increased, suggesting that a small group has lagged behind (we shall be returning to see which countries and why),
but a study of all countries clearly points to a general growth of equality. If, for example, we compare the richest and poorest fifth
or the richest and poorest third, we find the differences diminishing.
Economic freedom is not an enemy of equality.



That economic freedom is not an enemy of equality comes as a surprise to everyone who has
been told that capitalism is the ideology of the rich and the privileged. In fact, this is precisely
backward. The free market is the antithesis of societies of privilege. In a market economy, the
only way of holding on to a good economic position is by improving your production and
offering people good products or services. It is in the regulated economies, with their distribution
of privileges and monopolies to favored groups, that privilege can become entrenched. Those
who have the right contacts can afford to pay bribes. Those who have the time and knowledge to
plow through bulky volumes of regulations can start up business enterprises and engage in trade.
The poor never have a chance, not even of starting small businesses like bakeries or corner
shops. In a capitalistic society, all people with ideas and willpower are at liberty to try their luck,
even if they are not the favorites of the rulers.
Capitalism is working now. It is adapting to be more eco-friendly than socialist societies ever
could.
Martin W. Lewis, Director of International Relations, Stanford University, “Green Delusions: An
Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism,”1992 pg. 183
Regardless of extremist fantasies, we can expect that once capitalist energies begin to be
harnessed to environmental protection, a virtuous spiral will begin to develop. Several American
companies, for example, have already pledged to reduce their discharges well below current legal
limits. Such firms foresee stricter regulations in the future, and they are not unmindful of the
desirability of maintaining good public relations (which, contrary to the green radicals, should be
hailed as a powerful force for reform, not disparaged as mere window dressing). Moreover, in
learning how to reduce their own effluent streams, such companies will devise new control
mechanisms and strategies that they may be able to sell profitably to environmentally retarded
firms in a more ecologically aware future world.
The communist agenda leaves no room for ecological preservation

In their voluminous writings, Marx and Engels did embrace certain conservation principles ( J.
O'Connor 1989b: 9), but in a manner that most modern greens would regard as hopelessly
anthropocentric. There is little if any room for the struggle to preserve wilderness for the sake of
wilderness in the marxian agenda. Most varieties of marxism have not only downplayed nature
but have largely ignored rural issues as a whole.
Capitalism is both moral and just.

C. Bradley Thompson, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ashland University, ON PRINCIPLE
v1n3, “Socialism vs. Capitalism: Which is the Moral System”, October 1993

Despite the intellectuals’ psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social
system. Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one
another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the
basis of mutual consent. Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that
determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the
consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system. It is both moral and just
because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he
uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement,
regardless of one’s birth or station in life.
Socialism will fail – there has never been a successful and lasting socialist government
The easiest defense of capitalism is simply to contrast it with existing and recently existing
examples of marxian socialism. As is now abundantly clear, marxism's record is dismal on
almost every score, be it economic, social, or environmental. These failures cannot be dismissed
as errant quirks; marxian regimes have come to power in numerous countries, and everywhere
the results have been disheartening. From impoverished African states like Mozambique,
Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, and the Congo to highly industrialized, once-prosperous
European countries like the former East Germany and Czechoslovakia, all marxist experiments
have ended in disaster.
Arguing that ‘socialism will be better this time around’ is a bald-faced lie, they must be
accountable for the historical experience of socialism
In contrast, the stance taken here is that both capitalism and marxism must be assessed by the
same criteria. In particular, we should examine how each system has performed in practice, and
we should explore the potentialities of each system for achieving environmental sustainability
and social justice. On the former score, capitalism--for all its faults--is clearly preferable. In
regard to the latter issue, marxism begins with an initial advantage deriving from its utopian
visions. But until marxist thinkers begin to devise blueprints of how "true" socialism might be
achieved, one is forced to regard those visions as jejune fantasies. Capitalism, on the other hand,
has historically demonstrated vast potential for real social and environmental reform, while
potentially workable designs for further amelioration have been forwarded by numerous liberal
scholars.
The anti-capitalist intellectuals only critique capitalism because they believe that they would have
more control in a socialist society.
Robert Nozick, an American philosopher, and professor at Harvard University, SOCRATIC PUZZLES,

1997, page 283.

Various explanations have been proposed for the opposition of intellectuals to capitalism. One
favored by the neo-conservatives focuses on the group interests of intellectuals. Though they do
well economically under capitalism, they would do even better, they think, under a socialist
society where their power would be greater. In a market society, there is no central concentration
of power and if anyone has power or appears to have it, it is the successful entrepreneur and
businessman. The rewards of material wealth certainly are his. In a socialist society, however, it
would be wordsmith intellectuals who staff the government bureaucracies, who suggest its
policies, formulate them, and oversee their implementation. A socialist society, the intellectuals
think, is one in which they would rule—an idea, unsurprisingly, that they find appealing. (Recall
Plato’s description in the Republic of the best society as one in which they philosophers rule.)
Capitalism is key to reducing poverty.

Peter Saunders, professor emeritus at the Centre for Independent Studies and Adjunct Professor at the
Australian Graduate School of Management. He was previously of University of Sussex in England,
WHY CAPITALISM IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL, 2007, http://www.cis.org.au/POLICY/summer%2007-
08/saunders_summer07.html
The way this has enhanced people’s capacity to lead a good life can be seen in the spectacular
reduction in levels of global poverty, brought about by the spread of capitalism on a world scale.
In 1820, 85% of the world’s population lived on today’s equivalent of less than a dollar per day.
By 1950, this proportion had fallen to 50%. Today it is down to 20%. World poverty has fallen
more in the last fifty years than it did in the previous five hundred.(11) This dramatic reduction in
human misery and despair owes nothing to aging rockstars demanding that we ‘make poverty
history.’ It is due to the spread of global capitalism. Capitalism has also made it possible for
many more people to live on Earth and to survive for longer than ever before. In 1900, the
average life expectancy in the ‘less developed countries’ was just thirty years. By 1960, this had
risen to forty-six years. By 1998, it was sixty-five years. To put this extraordinary achievement
into perspective, the average life expectancy in the poorest countries at the end of the twentieth
century was fifteen years longer than the average life expectancy in the richest country in the
world—Britain—at the start of that century. By perpetually raising productivity, capitalism has
not only driven down poverty rates and raised life expectancy, it has also released much of
humanity from the crushing burden of physical labour, freeing us to pursue ‘higher’ objectives
instead. What Clive Hamilton airily dismisses as a ‘growth fetish’ has resulted in one hour of
work today delivering twenty-five times more value than it did in 1850. This has freed huge
chunks of our time for leisure, art, sport, learning, and other ‘soul-enriching’ pursuits. Despite all
the exaggerated talk of an ‘imbalance’ between work and family life, the average Australian
today spends a much greater proportion of his or her lifetime free of work than they would had
they belonged to any previous generation in history. There is another sense, too, in which
capitalism has freed individuals so they can pursue worthwhile lives, and that lies in its record of
undermining tyrannies and dictatorships. As examples like Pinochet’s Chile and Putin’s Russia
vividly demonstrate, a free economy does not guarantee a democratic polity or a society
governed by the rule of law. But as Milton Friedman once pointed out, these latter conditions are

never found in the absence of a free economy.(12) Historically, it was capitalism that delivered
humanity from the ‘soul-destroying’ weight of feudalism. Later, it freed millions from the dead
hand of totalitarian socialism. While capitalism may not be a sufficient condition of human
freedom, it is almost certainly a necessary one.

Debate
Competition in debate is good for us.
Mike Larimer, NCFCA President, National Christian Forensics & Communications Association
President’s Letter, July 2009
Competition refines speaking and thinking skills in a way that other activities simply cannot
match. The pursuit of excellence which accompanies fair and honest competition, in its purest
sense, does a great job of preparing our students to engage the culture. But if the awards and
accolades become the goal instead of the training we should impart, then at its best the trophies
are hollow and at its worst we’ve made an idol of this activity. If those of us who are coaches and
leaders lose sight of this fact, then we’ve also set the stage for the students to follow our example
and pursue questionable practices in the name of winning. This is unacceptable and compromises
the vision for the league.
Debate is “too competitive”

Kohn, Alfie, “No Contest: The Case Against Competition,” Revised Edition, 1992, Houghton
Mifflin, New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p.57
“Consider a different sort of example: the case of competitive debate. This is an activity as
consuming and, in its own way, as brutal as football.”
IMPACT: Hypocrisy, you can't debate and not be very competitive
Affirmative Brief Applications: Debate

Education
Definition of Cooperative Learning
Kennesaw State University Education Technology Department,
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/intech/cooperativelearning.htm
Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students
of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of
a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for
helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. Students work through the
assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it.
Anecdotal summary of the problem

Jonathan Butcher (researcher who specializes in education issues), “The War Against Excellence”,
The Heritage Foundation, August 10, 2005, http://www.heritage.org/press/commentary/ed081005c.cfm
In a survey of gifted students published in 1994, a sixth-grader from New York did not mince
words when asked about “cooperative learning,” the educational fad that calls for students to
work on assignments in groups.
“Since I always end up doing everything, even when I try to get other people to do things, it is
sort of like working by myself,” she said. “Except my teacher yells at me for doing everything
and not giving anyone else a chance, which I did give … It also takes longer because I have to
wait for everyone to catch up to me.”
Techniques like cooperative learning further the gap between good and bad students.
She considers “heterogeneous grouping” merely the most destructive of these trends. Gifted
students who understand the material don’t find themselves challenged, and students less far
along take a back seat in the project to the more gifted, whom they figure can do the work
quicker and more competently. This, of course, only widens the gap, academically and socially,
between the top students and the rest. Other exercises, such as peer tutoring and cooperative
learning, lead to similar results.
Cooperative learning reforms arrest achievement

What’s worse, these “reforms” actually seem to arrest student achievement. The most-recent
report on long-term reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress
tests revealed that overall achievement among 9-year-olds has improved nine points since 1971.
Affirmative Brief Applications: Education

But middle-school students have improved just four points over that period, and high-school
students haven’t improved at all.
Cooperative learning prevents anyone from achieving their potential.

The middle-school reform movement has sabotaged America’s schools, and this intellectual
genocide must be stopped. By attempting to make all students equal, middle-school progressives
have given all students subject to their poisonous methods something in common -- none can
achieve their potential.
Not teaching competition leaves students unprepared

John Tierney, “When Every Child Is Good Enough”, The New York Times, November 21, 2004,
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/weekinreview/21tier.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1
In his new book, "Hard America, Soft America," Michael Barone [American political analyst,
pundit and journalist] puts schools in the soft category and warns that they [schools] leave young
adults unprepared for the hard world awaiting them in the workplace. "The education
establishment has been too concerned with fostering kids' self-esteem instead of teaching them to
learn and compete," he said.
Toughen up and get competitive – children can handle it

He sounded very much like Professor Colangelo [Nicholas Colangelo, a professor at the
University of Iowa who is an expert in gifted education], who says that children want to compete
and can cope with defeat a lot better than adults imagine. "Life hurts your feelings," Mr. Bird
said. "I think people whine about stuff too much. C'mon, man, just get up and do it."
One size fits all curriculum “absurd”, equal opportunity, not outcome
Gregory Stanley (doctorate in history, teacher, author of two history monographs, two novels, and 20
scholarly articles). Lawrence Baines (professor of education at Texas Tech University,author of three
books and sixty articles), “Celebrating Mediocrity? How Schools Shortchange Gifted Students”,
Roeper Review, Fall 2002, http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=5000660059
Perhaps the most sinister force undermining gifted education programs is the re-emergence of the
concept of egalitarianism. In practice, egalitarianism has come to mean that all students should
get the same educational experience. States have spent millions determining baseline
competencies, funding lawsuits have erupted across the nation, and “tracking” has become a
dirty word The one-size-fits-all approach has become de-rigueur in American public schools.

Perhaps a more appropriate definition of equity would stress that all students have an equal
opportunity to actualize their learning potential. Once we can acknowledge that abilities are not
equally distributed, perhaps we can admit that a one-size-fits-all curriculum is absurd.
CL makes good students teach other students

Concomitantly, the “evolution” of instructional delivery–the transition of the teacher from sage
to “guide on the side” and the proliferation of cooperative learning strategies–have [has] further
enervated the learning environment for the gifted. With egalitarianism, the teacher becomes more
interested in socialization than learning; the mean becomes more important than the individual
score. When a teacher “teaches to the lower middle,” below average students learn at the target
pace while gifted students become tutors for the slower learners in the group. This “helper
methodology” has become so widespread in public schools that it is now virtually ubiquitous.
Students helping students doesn't help anyone

Defenders of heterogeneous grouping say that having bright students serve as peer tutors
validates the group experience and builds leadership skills. But do we really produce future
Edisons or Einsteins by forcing them to spend large amounts of their time tutoring students who
have no interest in the material? One veteran advanced placement teacher told us recently, “The
idea that the good student will pull up everyone else in a cooperative setting is a stark falsehood.
What usually happens is that the good student ends up doing the other students’ work.” Is
intellectual development for gifted students being bartered away so that teachers have a cadre of
unpaid tutors at their disposal?
Without competition, there's little interest in school

To some critics, that cooperative philosophy is one reason that so many boys like Dash [from
The Incredibles] are bored at school. "Professors of education think you can improve society by
making people less competitive," said Christina Hoff Sommers, author of "The War Against
Boys" and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "But [people] males are wired
for competition, and if you take it away there's little to interest them in school."

Teaching for groups leaves good students bored.

Teaching to the lower middle simply does not provide the level of challenge needed by gifted
students. As a result, the smartest students are often unproductive and bored. Tolan (2001)
compares under-challenged gifted students to cheetahs. A cheetah running forty miles per hour
might be impressive to some observers, but it is drastically underachieving in comparison to its
potential. Similarly, if a cheetah only has to chase after rabbits who run 20 m.p.h., it won’t run 70
m.p.h.
Cooperative Learning characteristics encourage students not to be seen as smart

A dumbed down curriculum and a heavy reliance on gifted-student-as-tutor has produced another
methodologically-induced disaster— gifted students as wallflowers. Because relatively few
benefits and additional, inglorious responsibilities seem to accrue to those identified as gifted,
many have opted for invisibility. Once a student is identified as gifted, he or she may suffer barbs
from less talented class- mates. Contrary to the contentions of supporters of the new equity, some
oppositional adolescents may not greet help from an intellectually gifted peer with enthusiasm.
In such a setting, gifted earners may see their intelligence as a stigma rather than an asset and act
to camouflage their abilities, an obvious impediment to their intellectual development (Coleman
& Sanders, 1993).
CL strategies obviously don't work, look at sports.

Parents and teachers are quick to notice that the various philosophies that limit the intellectual
growth of gifted students are not to be found on the athletic playing fields. Yet, for the sake of
discussion, what if they did? Suppose that football coaches coached to the middle. Would we
insist that their offensive scheme be simple enough so that even the most intellectually
challenged player could understand? Because star athletes are already more talented, would we
denounce special coaching for them as undemocratic? Would we put the star quarterback with
the third team so he could tutor them while the coach facilitated learning from the sidelines?

Would we insist that everyone should have the right to equal playing time so as not to appear
elitist? Would we allow every team member to play quarterback while insisting that there was no
right or wrong outcome?
The answer to all of these questions is obviously no. We prize excellence in scholastic sports.
Athletics are frequently the highest profile activity in school and most students and teachers do
not object to athletes taking pride in their accomplishments.

IGMc
(The International Genetically Engineered Machines competition)
Summary: Undergraduate students from universities around the world compete in a contest to design
the best genetically engineered machine. The 2008 winners from Slovenia designed a vaccine to
protect against stomach ulcers and cancer. The competition inspired life-saving innovation.
Eric Bland, “Undergrad competition inspires ulcer vaccine: Entry wins International Genetically
Engineered Machine competition”, Nov . 11, 2008, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27647947
A genetically engineered vaccine for the bacteria that causes stomach cancer and ulcers has won the
Grand Prize at the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, or iGEM, in
Cambridge, Mass.
...
Each year, teams from around the world, mainly undergraduates, spend six months designing, and then
creating, bacteria and fungi with new properties for the competition. Entries have included everything
from microbial fuel cells to yogurt-induced kidney dialysis.
...
The winning design this year was from Slovenia. The 13-member team used the tools of synthetic
biology o create a prototype vaccine against stomach bug Helicobacter pylori, which can cause ulcers
and, in rare cases, lead to cancer.
...
"Teams this year have succeeded in completing projects they never could have when we first started,"
said Rettberg [Randy, professor at MIT]. "This is all possible because of the efforts of previous iGEM
teams."
Affirmative Brief Applications: IGMc

Science
Science highly competitive
Warren 0. Hagstrom, University of Wisconsin, Madison, COMPETITION IN SCIENCE, American
Sociological Review 1974, Vol. 39 (February): 1-18
Physical and biological scientists work in a highly competitive situation. They wish to be first to
announce original discoveries and are concerned at being anticipated in this by another scientist.
Competition means that the most important problems in science get the most work
Competition may have both functional and dysfunctional consequences for science. The idea
that competition allocates scientific effort beneficially has been expressed persuasively by
Michael Polanyi (1951, 1955). Since most recognition is given for discoveries concerning
problems considered most important in the scientific community, and since scientists seek
recognition,2 they tend to try to be first to solve them. They publish their partial findings
quickly, rather than dropping the bombshell of a completely solved problem on their surprised
colleagues.3 Thus, the competition indicates that important problems receive the attention due
them. Indirect evidence for this is the large effect, independent of publication rates, of the
frequency of having one's past research cited on the frequency of having been anticipated;
further evidence will be discussed below when specialties are used as units of analysis. At the
same time, competition forces some scientists to work on less important problems, and it insures
that some scientists will seek new ways, not the "easiest" and most obvious
Competition encourages differentiation of research

Competition tends to produce differentiation. When workers are highly concerned about the
possibility of being anticipated, they tend to consider new lines of research.
Scientific redundancy good, comes from competition

As Robert Merton has pointed out (1963:244-8; 1968:60), such an interpretation is probably
mistaken because it neglects the functions of redundancy, confusing the meaning of redundancy
as that which is superfluous with its meaning as abundance. The competition that leads to
anticipation and cases of independent multiple discovery is functional because it assures that
discoveries important to scientific growth will in fact be made. In addition, it assures that
discoveries will be incorporated in the body of current scientific knowledge; and it shortens the
time required for this to occur. Competitors seldom approach a problem in identical ways, and
Affirmative Brief Applications: Science

when a discovery is made those who have been anticipated will perceive somewhat different
implications from it for future research.
Competition in science forces innovation and differentiation.

In any case, competition in science has functional consequences in just such fields, for it forces
innovation and differentiation. One of the strongest effects described above was between
concern at being anticipated and the tendency to shift specialties, and this dependent variable
barely taps the exploratory behavior of scientists in highly competitive situations.
Competition forces institutional innovation and differentiation.

Competition in science is thus associated with innovation and differentiation by the individual
scientist. There is also strong evidence that competition stimulates institutional innovation and
differentiation. Ben- David (1960, 1971; Ben-David and Zloczower, 1962) has shown that the
greater degree of competition in the American university system, and earlier in the German
universities, accounts in part for their greater scientific productivity and greater flexibility than
the French or British university systems. Riesman (1958) has discussed how competition among
American universities is related to innovation and maintaining academic standards. The link
between individual and institutional competition is to be found in the careers of scientists.
Individual competition can lead to major shifts in careers only if institutions are flexible enough
to provide new types of positions, and institutional competition becomes important
Affirmative Brief Applications: Science

Sports
CL strategies obviously don't work, look at sports.

Parents and teachers are quick to notice that the various philosophies that limit the intellectual
growth of gifted students are not to be found on the athletic playing fields. Yet, for the sake of
discussion, what if they did? Suppose that football coaches coached to the middle. Would we
insist that their offensive scheme be simple enough so that even the most intellectually
challenged player could understand? Because star athletes are already more talented, would we
denounce special coaching for them as undemocratic? Would we put the star quarterback with
the third team so he could tutor them while the coach facilitated learning from the sidelines?
Would we insist that everyone should have the right to equal playing time so as not to appear
elitist? Would we allow every team member to play quarterback while insisting that there was no
right or wrong outcome?
The answer to all of these questions is obviously no. We prize excellence in scholastic sports.
Athletics are frequently the highest profile activity in school and most students and teachers do
not object to athletes taking pride in their accomplishments.
We've seen sports without competition – women's college athletics pre-1970

Applying egalitarian principles to the world of sport is not outside the realm of historical
precedent. One only has to look back to the opening decades of the twentieth century to see what
happened when competition and excellence in athletics were denounced as elitist, undemocratic,
and destructive. Starting early in the century and peaking in the 1920s, several women’s physical
education associations attacked competitive sports for women and succeeded in ridding most
colleges of them. Leading the battle were such organizations as the American Physical Education
Association (APEA) and the Women’s Division of the National American Athletic Federation
(NAAF). Spokeswomen for these groups wrote that sports should be available for every girl,
providing the “greatest good for the greatest number.” Varsity sports, however, were “blatantly
undemocratic.” Under this system, coaches chose a small group of girls representing a small
percentage of the student body, and gave them intensive preparation, thus depriving the larger
number of girls of their opportunities. The irony here, supporters of the ban on competition
stated, was that these select few did not need the extra training to achieve fitness. The attention
of the coaches could be better spent promoting activities for all students rather than for a limited
number chosen for their unnatural physical prowess. The NAAF and APEA had tremendous
Affirmative Brief Applications: Sports

support among collegiate professors of women’s physical education. By the end of the 1920s,
they had succeeded in eliminating most varsity sports for women. Writing to the president of her
university in 1928, University of Kentucky’s Women’s PE Director claimed that “Now that
Kentucky like most of the colleges in the country has given up the varsity team with its emphasis
on star players, we have been able to accomplish the bigger purpose of having every girl
participate in some sport.” Blanding further claimed that the ban on intercollegiate basketball
had, in fact, produced better athletes (Stanley, 1996).
Participants didn't like it.

The Dean of Women wrote to the Board of Trustees endorsing the ban on competition. She
stressed that “we want to promote physical culture in the girls and not to make athletes of them.”
Yet missing from her pronouncements were the voices of the girls, themselves. They did not
think their basketball games (which predated the now-famous men’s team by a year) were
hazardous, undemocratic, or unladylike. Players from the defunct women’s team withdrew from
the Athletic Association in protest. Neither did they participate in the newly restructured Play
Day intramural contests. Players from other schools responded similarly, in several cases burning
their uniforms in protest (Stanley, 1995).
Eliminating competition eliminated sports.

The results of this nationwide campaign were disastrous for women’s sports. At the University of
Kentucky, varsity sports did not return to the campus for over fifty years. Two generations of
young girls grew up without positive role models in women’s sports. By the 1970s, women
athletes had become, in many places, novelties.
Affirmative Brief Applications: Sports

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Joshua Mirth PARADE, Wisconsin

2009-2010 NCFCA Lincoln-Douglas

Compete (root of competition): [to]engage in a contest; measure oneself against others -

"Competition is an open market process of discovery and adjustment, under conditions of

Affirmative Brief Definitions Definitions

To gain or obtain, as the result of exertion. - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary

Affirmative Brief Definitions Definitions

Capitalism Good / Socialism Bad

Affirmative Brief Applications: Applications:

Economic freedom is not an enemy of equality.

Affirmative Brief Applications: Applications:

Capitalism”, p. 90, 2003

The communist agenda leaves no room for ecological preservation

Capitalism is both moral and just.

Affirmative Brief Applications: Applications:

Affirmative Brief Applications: Applications:

1997, page 283.

Capitalism is key to reducing poverty.

Affirmative Brief Applications: Applications:

Affirmative Brief Applications: Applications:

Debate is “too competitive”

Affirmative Brief Applications: Debate

Anecdotal summary of the problem

Cooperative learning reforms arrest achievement

Affirmative Brief Applications: Education

Cooperative learning prevents anyone from achieving their potential.

Not teaching competition leaves students unprepared

Toughen up and get competitive – children can handle it

Affirmative Brief Applications: Education

CL makes good students teach other students

Students helping students doesn't help anyone

Without competition, there's little interest in school

Affirmative Brief Applications: Education

Teaching for groups leaves good students bored.

Cooperative Learning characteristics encourage students not to be seen as smart

CL strategies obviously don't work, look at sports.

Affirmative Brief Applications: Education

Affirmative Brief Applications: Education

Affirmative Brief Applications: IGMc

Competition encourages differentiation of research

Scientific redundancy good, comes from competition

Affirmative Brief Applications: Science

Competition in science forces innovation and differentiation.

Competition forces institutional innovation and differentiation.

Affirmative Brief Applications: Science

CL strategies obviously don't work, look at sports.

We've seen sports without competition – women's college athletics pre-1970

Affirmative Brief Applications: Sports

Participants didn't like it.

Eliminating competition eliminated sports.

Affirmative Brief Applications: Sports

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