No debate, no opinion: The power and influence of debating

The criteria for credibility in modern academia are extremely clear. Education level, quality academic publications, and time spent studying the field determine whom the audience can trust to make statements about the field and whom they can’t.

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This methodology works extremely well on issues of overwhelming consensus: if 98% of scientists believe in climate change and 99% of political scientists favor strong background checks for firearm purchases, then there is no good reason to question it.Unfortunately, many topics don’t have this type of consensus. When academics can’t come to an agreement on a topic like abortion rights, and there exist credible academics on both sides of the argument, you can’t compare the years they lived or the number of degrees they have.

Instead, it seems that the most credible indicator for determining if a person has ideas worth considering is someone who has the ability to display their knowledge and understanding of a subject in a debate with someone who staunchly opposes them.

How debates work

Despite the seemingly complex nature of debates, they can be simplified into the battle of two attributes: rhetoric and argumentation. Rhetoric is commonly understood as the persuasive aspect of debate, in which someone attempts to convince you of their position through their speech.

The other part, argumentation, is about the nature of the argument itself. Understanding whether the premises are supported, whether the conclusion follows, and the nature of the argument being presented, independent of how persuasive its verbal presentation may be.These attributes aren’t always aligned perfectly. Someone with very good rhetoric may convince you of a position with a bad argument, and someone who has a hard time explaining a simple concept may have an incredibly strong argument.

This is important to understand when evaluating debates. There will be times when an expert in a field speaks to someone who self-studied, and the debate ends with the expert sounding as if they don’t know more than the other person.

Although sometimes the expert is just less knowledgeable than the other person, oftentimes people forget that the rhetorical advantage does not mean they are correct.

Debating is a skill. It takes time and effort to get good at, and it can be very hard for academics to understand that skill when they dedicate their entire life to a different one.

The importance of debating

As mentioned before, debating has its flaws and is particularly hard to understand for people who may not have developed the auditory skill of picking apart the rhetorical and argumentative flaws someone can make.

However, debating is still the only way for a layman to have an opinion on certain topics. For people who don’t have the time or knowledge to read hundreds of academic papers on pro-life and pro-choice arguments, listening to debates is a digestible alternative.

This is the real reason why knowing how to debate is the real indicator of having an opinion worth listening to. If you cannot properly communicate your ideas to the public, especially when the ideas are direct consequences of public policy, there is no value in having credentials or qualifications.

It is only the public-facing academics who have the ability to change the minds of the typical audience and impact the way the public sees topics. Academics who cannot do this have no reason to proclaim an opinion outside of their ivory tower.

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The best example of this can be seen through political commentators. Even though the majority of them are not qualified in the fields they talk about, they have changed many more minds and fortified many more opinions than academics who solely participate in back-and-forths with other academics.

Steven “Destiny” Bonnell II (who has been referenced ad nauseam in prior articles) debated Marxist scholar Richard Wolff in what both sides consider to be a clear victory for Destiny.

In this case, a college dropout seemed to have better ideas and a better presentation of these ideas, compared to someone who has published numerous books and papers on socialism, in a debate about what a socialist society would look like and whether it is feasible.

Even though Wolff’s ideas require consideration based on his academic position, if the average person wanted to see how a well-read and published socialist scholar would defend the position without reading dense academic publications, this debate would be a great example of how someone could be turned away from such a position.

Why would someone be taken seriously if they cannot defend their positions when they’re opposed by people with stronger and more coherent ideas?

Moving forward

Relying on debates to form an opinion on any issue is not going to be without its faults. In fact, in some cases it may even lead someone to a position based on faulty logic and bad reasoning. However, in a world where most academic publications are unreadable to the public, there is no better option.

Therefore, academics should be pushed toward public debates and learning how to convey their ideas toward layman audiences so that they can change the minds of those who have the power to change the world around them.

Without proving the efficacy of the idea in a debate, there are no good reasons to adopt a complex and extremely partisan position, and having academics forgo attempting to learn this skill only makes it harder for the general public to be informed.

Logan Walters is a Management Information Systems major at Florida State University and a Staff Writer for the Views section of the FSView & Florida Flambeau, the student-run, independent online news service for the FSU community. Email our staff at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on FSU News: No debate, no opinion: The power and influence of debating

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Reporting by Logan Walters, Staff Writer, FSView / FSU News

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This story was originally published September 14, 2026 at 9:01 AM.