...there is no
better way to "purify" and
consolidate the growth of a science than
through continuous and vigorous
debates...
I s s u e s
f o r
D e b a t e s
O v e r v i e w
I. Issues
for Debates as the Engine of our
Publication
Issues for Debates associated
with each field of study (Physics, Astronomy, Biology,
Chemistry, and Philosophy) shall be posted for
consideration as they represent the engine of our
publication. Whenever possible or feasible, a variety of
viewpoints shall be sought to be presented for a
particular issue through a debating type structure
described below. Because of their clashing nature, many
of these viewpoints will be knocked out in their early
rounds of debates. The most resilient and enduring
viewpoints will eventually be able to form the seeds for
the foundation of the issue or subject at
hand.
The category of an Issue for
Debates presented will correspond and be associated to
one of these five (5) sections
1. The
RealDeal® Foundational Inquiries;
2. The RealDeal® Theoretical Studies;
3. The RealDeal® Discovery Reports;
4. The RealDeal® Focus Line:
Science vs. Society, Religion; and
5. The RealDeal® Historical
Scrutinies.
which are our so-called
"Core" sections.
Foundational issues are
presented in our Foundational Inquiries section. Issues
related to particular parts of a theory, with derivation
of a result or formula from a theory or, with
interpretation of a theoretical result of a theory of
Nature or Philosophy are presented in our Theoretical
Studies section. Issue related to the interpretation of
various discovery reports are presented in our Discovery
Reports section. Various social, cultural, moral, or
ethical issues concerning Science and Society, Science
and Religion, Science and Philosophy are presented in our
Focus Line section. And finally, historical issues
involving various interpretations of facts based on the
available historical documents are presented in our
Historical Scrutinies section. Thus, all Issues for
Debates shall belong to a particular "Core" Section of
our publication, be that Foundational Inquiries,
Theoretical Studies, Discovery Reports, Focus Line, or
Historical Scrutinies.
Commentaries, observations,
remarks, and succinct viewpoints and critical notes with
respect to the various Issues for Debates shall be placed
in our Forum Letters section associated with a respective
field (Physics, Astronomy, etc.). When the issue involved
refers or is applicable to all fields (Physics,
Astronomy, and so on), it shall be placed in the HomePage
site of the Forum Letters. When the issue involved
pertains to a particular field only, it shall be placed
in the page of that particular field.
In fact, in general, when an
Issue for Debates shall pertain to all fields (Physics,
Astronomy, and so on), it shall be placed in the HomePage
site of that respective section whose type the said issue
corresponds. When, on the other hand, an issue presented
refers only to a particular field (such as Physics, or
Astronomy, and so on), it shall be placed in the site of
that respective field corresponding to the section of the
issue involved. For instance, a foundational issue in
Physics shall be placed in the Foundational Inquiries
page corresponding to Physics, a foundational issue in
Biology shall be placed in the Foundational Inquiries
page corresponding to Biology, and so on.
II. On the
Rounds of Debates and The List and Auxiliary List of
Most Wanted Solutions.
The very first article to be
published in response to a posted Issue for Debate shall
have as its purpose and scope, whenever possible or
feasible, to stir the subject at hand by inciting and
challenging the established or prevailing theory or view
and when necessary carrying the devil's advocate point of
view. When no prevailing viewpoint or theory exists with
respect to a particular subject for debate, the said very
first article shall have the same scope and purpose
namely to stir the interest in the subject at hand by
presenting its daring point of view. For a lack of a
better term, this very first article is called the
Initial Stirring article. Following this article, the
next article to be published with respect to the issue at
hand is an article designed to annihilate, demolish, and
freeze in its tracks the Initial Stirring article
published, and whenever possible or feasible, to present
the subject of discussion through a different light and
perspective &endash;&endash;that provided by the majority
or the prevailing view. Again for a lack of a better
term, this first counter article shall be called the
Initial Countering article. As stated, the principal
purpose and scope of an Initial Countering article is to
annihilate, demolish and freeze in its tracks the Initial
Stirring article. These two (2) initial articles,
the Stirring and the Countering articles, shall form the
foundation for all debates to follow with respect to the
issue at hand. Because of this, these initial articles
are referred also as the ground-level articles as they
define the groundwork for the respective debate to
follow.
As an academic exercise of
the highest order, one or a group of authors can present
simultaneously both an Initial Stirring article and an
Initial Countering article as there is no requirement to
have different authors for different points of view.
Furthermore, pursuant to our Publication Policy (see, for
more detail our Publication Policy site which can be
accessed from our Science's Front Page), one or both of
these initial articles can be written as anonymous, and
the author(s) at any time can reveal thereafter, if so
desired, the author's identity.
It is perhaps worth noting
that one of the most celebrated such academic exercises
of presenting both, head-to-head, opposing viewpoints
based on impeccable rationales was presented by the
greatest rational thinker of all time, Immanuel Kant,
through his famous four (4) thesis and antithesis
propositions grouped into his celebrated Antinomy of
Pure Reason.
Any articles to follow up in response to the
ground-level, initial articles are called Debating
articles. We will have numbered rounds of debates,
Round 1 of debate, Round 2 of debate, etc., up
to and including Round 5. No Issue for Debates shall
be sustained for more than five (5) rounds. If an
Issue for Debates reaches the five (5) rounds limit
with outstanding lingering problems still persisting,
then those outstanding problems shall be grouped and
articulated as needed and placed, as a unit, into our
List or Auxiliary List of Most Wanted Solutions following
this criteria: if the Issue of Debates in question is
from our Foundational Inquiries it shall be placed in the
List, if not (i.e., if it is from Theoretical Studies,
Discovery Reports, Focus Line, or Historical Scrutinies)
it shall be placed into the Auxiliary List. A notable
exception to this rule may apply to certain issues
derived from the Theoretical Studies section, if it
appears that those issues can transcend into other
subjects or fields of studies, and thus, in a sense can
be considered as fundamental. Theory of Gravity, for
instance, is such an example.
An Issue for Debates, may not need to wait five (5)
rounds of debates before it can be posted in the List or
Auxiliary List of Most Wanted Solution, if it appears
that no answers currently exist with respect to the said
issue or that the irreconcilable viewpoints presented
cannot be shaken from their respective grounds. In such a
situation, an Issue for Debates posted shall be moved to
the List or Auxiliary List of Most Wanted
Solutions.
III. On the Status, Form of Presentation, and the
Subject Reference Folder Associated With an Issue for
Debates
A posted Issue for Debates
can have one of these five (5) self-explanatory
statutes:
- Inactive [Nothing
written on the subject as yet],
- Inactive [Initial
articles only],
- Active [Rounds of
debates in progress],
- Closed [Issue settled
and/or resolved], and
- Transferred [To the
List or The Auxiliary List]
according to the specific
situation that such an Issue of Debates is
in.
All Issues for Debates shall have an outer short form of
presentation and an in-depth exposure of the subject at
hand. The outer short forms are always visible and
exposed in the page and are called synopses. To reach the
in-depth presentation of an Issue of interest, you click
on the Pondering-man Icon associated with the respective
Issue located at the top left side of the issues'
presentation.
As noted, an Issue for Debate of a particular "Core"
Section belonging to a particular Field (Physics,
Astronomy) can be argued in two (2)
places:
i) -first and
foremost through organized Rounds of Debates posted in
the Site of the respective Field associated with the
"Core" Sections it belongs to, and
ii) -second, summarily, in the Forum Letters
associated with the respective field.
The totality of all articles
and letters corresponding to a particular Issue for
Debates shall be grouped into a Subject Reference Folder
for that topic. Thus, to each and every Issue for Debates
posted, a corresponding Subject Reference Folder shall be
associated with it. All the material accumulated for a
particular Subject Reference Folder shall be organized in
the chronological order that it was received. The status
of a Subject Reference Folder shall correspond to the
status of the Issue for Debates that it represents. To
access to the Subject Reference Folder you simply click
on its Icon located at the bottom of the Issue's
presentation.
IV. On
Standards and Requirements Imposed on All Articles
Submitted in Response to an Issue for
Debates
1) All articles
presenting or challenging an idea, theory, or point of
view are put first and foremost to the rigorous test of
determining whether they conform to our standards of
employing exclusively Rational Thinking and of being free
of speculations, beliefs, and logical inferences based on
analogies, speculations, or conjectures. Only those
articles which pass this test in conjunction with the
requirements set in our Publication Policy can and will
be published here.
2) The Initial
Stirring article is unique both in its scope, importance,
and in its form of presentation as its main function is
to stir and provoke a debate for the issue at hand from
the standpoint of challenging an established or accepted
point of view. This is not an easy task: first to be
accepted as a credible challenge, and second to be able
to mount some sort of attack towards the existing
established theory or a point of view in question. The
success of an Initial Stirring article shall rest in its
ability to sustain the avalanche of opposition attempting
to kill its stand. The most successful Initial Stirring
articles will be the ones capable of carrying the debate
all the way to the end through all five (5) rounds
of debates and eventually reaching our highest pinnacle,
The List or The Auxiliary List of Most Wanted
Solutions.
3) The first article
challenging the Initial Stirring View is called, for a
lack of a better term, the Initial Countering Article and
its corresponding view is called the Countering View. In
response to an Initial Stirring view we can have more
than one Initial Countering Article but their views
collectively still will be known as the Countering
View.
a) Upon
accepting and publishing one or more challenges to an
Initial Stirring Article, this in itself will not be
able to knockout the initial idea, theory, or point of
view, known, as stated, as the Stirring View, if
logically both views can coexist together
notwithstanding their opposing standpoints. In such a
situation, both opposing viewpoints, the Stirring and
the Countering views, will reside within the subject
at hand enriching considerably the respective subject.
A splendid example of such a situation is given by the
most celebrated scientific clash in the History of
Physics, that governing the Theory of Light with
respect to its nature: corpuscular vs. undulatory.
Rather than to eliminate one view over the other,
because of their opposing viewpoints, we consider
light as behaving in certain situations like a train
of minuscule particles (corpuscular view) and in other
situations like a wave (undulatory view). The key
here, why we are not eliminating one view over
another, is that we have different circumstances for
different behaviors and not the same circumstance for
different behaviors. This distinction is paramount and
needs to be magnified as it will guide us well in
determining the feasibility of an idea, theory, or
point of view. Always we will need to keep in mind the
domain of applicability of an idea, theory, or point
of view, and never ever to lose sight of this and
extrapolate its range of applicability to other areas
and domains without justification. If a physical law
or a theory is discovered to exist for a certain
situation but not another, for a class of objects but
not another, this does not mean that the said physical
law or theory in question is wrong or incorrect
because it is not able to cover all types of
situations and all classes of objects but rather it
means that the said physical law or theory is valid
for a particular class of objects or for a particular
situation. It is because of this that we accept both
the corpuscular and the undulatory theory of light,
recognizing that each theory applies to different
situations and set of circumstances. This recognition
and realization is paramount indeed and should, as
stated, never escape from our sight.
b) Should, on the
other hand, a challenge to a Stirring View be based on
attacking the idea, theory, or point of view at its
foundation, at the manner it acquired its results and
conclusions, at aberration in its logic and logical
inconsistencies, at the weakness of its arguments,
then such a challenge has the potential to give a
mortal blow to the entire Stirring View. In such a
case, if no contest to the challenge is presented by
the original author(s) or by its supporters of the
Stirring View, the said idea, theory or point of view
shall be removed from any further considerations and
the Initial Stirring Article will be placed into a
Site entitled Dismissed Views. Should however a viable
contest be presented to the challenge received, then,
as indicated above, a "bout" up to five (5)
rounds of debates back-and-forth between the two
clashing views shall be commenced and this, in itself,
represents a significant achievement for the Stirring
View. If no clear winner appear to emerge at the end
of these debates, they would be placed in our most
distinguished place --the List or Auxiliary List for
further attention and special consideration.
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