affirmative brief

8/9/2019 Affirmative Brief

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Joshua Mirth PARADE, Wisconsin

2009-2010 NCFCA Lincoln-DouglasDebate

AffirmativeBrief

Resolved: That competition issuperior to cooperation as a means

of achieving excellence.

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Joshua R. Mirth

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Table of Contents

Definitions.............................................................................................................................................4Competition:................................................................................................................................4

Superior: .....................................................................................................................................4Cooperation: ...............................................................................................................................4Cooperate: ..................................................................................................................................5Means: ........................................................................................................................................5Mean: .........................................................................................................................................5Achieve: .....................................................................................................................................5Excellence: ..................................................................................................................................5

Applications:.........................................................................................................................................6Capitalism Good / Socialism Bad................................................................................................6Debate........................................................................................................................................12Education...................................................................................................................................13

IGMc..........................................................................................................................................18Science.......................................................................................................................................19Sports.........................................................................................................................................21

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Definitions

Competition:

The act or action of seeking to gain what another is seeking to gain at the same time andusually under or as if under fair or equitable rules and circumstances: a common struggleespecially among individuals of relatively equal standing. - Webster's New InternationalDictionary, 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 twocandidates for an office, or of two poets for superior reputation. - Noah Webster's 1828Dictionary

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 ofuncertainty, that can include interfirm rivalry as well as interfirm cooperation." - DominickArmentano ( 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: takingprecedence: of a higher order, nature, or kind. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rdEdition, Unabriged

Higher or greater in excellence; surpassing others in the greatness, goodness or value of anyquality; as a man of superior merit, of superior bravery, of superior talents or understanding, ofsuperior accomplishments. -Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary

Cooperation:

The act of cooperating: a condition marked by cooperating: a joint operation: common effort orlabor. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged

To work or act together toward a common end or purpose. - The American Heritage Dictionaryof the English Language

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Cooperate:

To act or work with another or others to a common end: operate jointly. - Webster's NewInternational Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged

Means:Third person singular form of mean (verb). - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rdEdition, Unabriged

Mean:

Something intervening, intermediate, or intermediary. Something by the use or help of which adesired end is attained or made more likely: an agent, tool, device, measure, plan, or policy foraccomplishing 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: maketo 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: anexcellent 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, orvaluable and esteemed, in things. (Brackets added) - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary

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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 GlobalCapitalism, p. 129, 2003

A company, a region, or a country specializes where it has comparative advantages and cantherefore generate the greatest value. Capital and labor from older, less competitive sectors aretransferred 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 thereforeanticipate a substantial acceleration of growth for at least the first few years. But economicopenness also leads to an enduring effort to improve production, because foreign competitionforces 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 industriesbecomes ever more efficient, resources are freed up for investment in new methods, inventions,and products. This same argument supports competition generally; it simply extends competitionto even bigger fields, thus making it more intensive.

Capitalism is essential for providing basic necessitiesproves the system can meet needs and

wont 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 theconditions 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 guaranteesnecessities like food and shelter. By enforcing a clear system of private property rights, it offersindividuals security. It allows people to interact freely, forming family ties, friendship groups, andcommunities of common interest; and it maximises opportunities for people to realise their potentialthrough hard work and innovation. These are the conditions that Abraham Maslow identified as essential for humansto 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 besatisfied in a capitalist society. Marxs theory of the immiseration of the proletariat held that capitalismcouldnt even guarantee provision of food and shelter, for mass poverty, misery, ignorance, and squalor werethe inevitable consequence of the accumulation of wealth by a tiny capitalist class.(21) We now know that Marx wasspectacularly wrong. Working people today do not just earn a good wage; they own comfortablehomes, have shares in the companies that employ them, go to university, win entry to theprofessions, set up businesses, and run for high office. The western working class (to the extent that such athing still exists) has been so busy expanding its horizons that it has quite forgotten about its historic mission of overthrowing

Affirmative Brief Applications: Applications:
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capitalism.

The idea of a widening gap between the rich and the poor is wrongtwo reasons

Johan Norberg, a fellow at the Swedish think tank Timbro, CATO INSTITUTE, In Defense of GlobalCapitalism, p. 54, 2003

There are two reasons why this objection to globalization does not hold up. First, even if thiswere true it would not matter very much. If everyone is coming to be better off, what does itmatter that the improvement comes faster for some than for others? Surely the important thing isfor everyone to be as well off as possible, not whether one group is better off than another. Onlythose who consider wealth a greater problem than poverty can find a problem in some becomingmillionaires while others grow wealthier from their own starting points. It is better to be poor inthe inegalitarian United States, where the poverty line for individuals in 2001 was about $9,039per year, than to be equal in countries like Rwanda, where in 2001 GDP per capita (adjusted forpurchasing 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 townsand cities have grown faster than the countryside. But given the unprecedented poverty reductionthis has entailed in both town and country, can anyone wish that this development had neverhappened?

The gap between the rich and the poor is declining because of globalization

Johan Norberg, a fellow at the Swedish think tank Timbro, CATO INSTITUTE, In Defense of Global

Capitalism, p. 56, 2003

A report from the Norwegian Institute for Foreign Affairs investigated global inequality by means offigures adjusted for purchasing power. Their data show that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, inequalitybetween countries has been continuously declining ever since the end of the 1970s. This decline wasespecially rapid between 1993 and 1998, when globalization really gathered speed. 22 More recently, similar research byColumbia University development economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin has confirmed those findings. When the UNDP's ownnumbers 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 betweenpersons, rather than inequality between countries, global inequality at the end of 2000 was at itslowest point since the end of World War II. Estimates that compare countries rather thanindividuals, as both authors note, grossly overestimate real inequality because they allow gains forhuge numbers of people to be outweighed by comparable losses for far fewer. Countryaggregates treat China and Grenada as data points of equal weight, even though China'spopulation is 12,000 times Grenada's. Once we shift our focus to people rather than nations, the evidence isoverwhelming 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 fifthor the richest and poorest third, we find the differences diminishing.

Economic freedom is not an enemy of equality.

Johan Norberg, a fellow at the Swedish think tank Timbro, CATO INSTITUTE, In Defense of Global



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Capitalism, p. 90, 2003

That economic freedom is not an enemy of equality comes as a surprise to everyone who hasbeen told that capitalism is the ideology of the rich and the privileged. In fact, this is preciselybackward. 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 andoffering people good products or services. It is in the regulated economies, with their distributionof privileges and monopolies to favored groups, that privilege can become entrenched. Thosewho have the right contacts can afford to pay bribes. Those who have the time and knowledge toplow 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 cornershops. 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 beharnessed to environmental protection, a virtuous spiral will begin to develop. Several Americancompanies, for example, have already pledged to reduce their discharges well below current legallimits. Such firms foresee stricter regulations in the future, and they are not unmindful of thedesirability of maintaining good public relations (which, contrary to the green radicals, should behailed as a powerful force for reform, not disparaged as mere window dressing). Moreover, inlearning how to reduce their own effluent streams, such companies will devise new controlmechanisms and strategies that they may be able to sell profitably to environmentally retardedfirms in a more ecologically aware future world.

The communist agenda leaves no room for ecological preservation

Martin W. Lewis, Director of International Relations, Stanford University, Green Delusions: An


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 hopelesslyanthropocentric. There is little if any room for the struggle to preserve wilderness for the sake ofwilderness 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 PRINCIPLEv1n3, Socialism vs. Capitalism: Which is the Moral System, October 1993



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Despite the intellectuals psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just socialsystem. Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with oneanother as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on thebasis 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 theconsumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system. It is both moral and justbecause the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which heuses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement,regardless of ones birth or station in life.

Socialism will fail there has never been a successful and lasting socialist government

Martin W. Lewis, Director of International Relations, Stanford University, Green Delusions: AnEnvironmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism,1992 pg. 163

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 onalmost every score, be it economic, social, or environmental. These failures cannot be dismissedas errant quirks; marxian regimes have come to power in numerous countries, and everywherethe results have been disheartening. From impoverished African states like Mozambique,Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, and the Congo to highly industrialized, once-prosperousEuropean countries like the former East Germany and Czechoslovakia, all marxist experimentshave 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

Martin W. Lewis, Director of International Relations, Stanford University, Green Delusions: An


In contrast, the stance taken here is that both capitalism and marxism must be assessed by thesame criteria. In particular, we should examine how each system has performed in practice, andwe should explore the potentialities of each system for achieving environmental sustainabilityand social justice. On the former score, capitalism--for all its faults--is clearly preferable. Inregard to the latter issue, marxism begins with an initial advantage deriving from its utopianvisions. But until marxist thinkers begin to devise blueprints of how "true" socialism might beachieved, 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 liberalscholars.

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,



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1997, page 283.

Various explanations have been proposed for the opposition of intellectuals to capitalism. Onefavored by the neo-conservatives focuses on the group interests of intellectuals. Though they dowell 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 concentrationof power and if anyone has power or appears to have it, it is the successful entrepreneur andbusinessman. The rewards of material wealth certainly are his. In a socialist society, however, itwould be wordsmith intellectuals who staff the government bureaucracies, who suggest itspolicies, formulate them, and oversee their implementation. A socialist society, the intellectualsthink, is one in which they would rulean idea, unsurprisingly, that they find appealing. (RecallPlatos description in theRepublic 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 peoples capacity to lead a good life can be seen in the spectacularreduction in levels of global poverty, brought about by the spread of capitalism on a world scale.In 1820, 85% of the worlds population lived on todays 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 fallenmore in the last fifty years than it did in the previous five hundred.(11) This dramatic reduction inhuman misery and despair owes nothing to aging rockstars demanding that we make povertyhistory. It is due to the spread of global capitalism. Capitalism has also made it possible formany more people to live on Earth and to survive for longer than ever before. In 1900, theaverage life expectancy in the less developed countries was just thirty years. By 1960, this hadrisen to forty-six years. By 1998, it was sixty-five years. To put this extraordinary achievementinto perspective, the average life expectancy in the poorest countries at the end of the twentiethcentury was fifteen years longer than the average life expectancy in the richest country in theworldBritainat the start of that century. By perpetually raising productivity, capitalism hasnot only driven down poverty rates and raised life expectancy, it has also released much ofhumanity from the crushing burden of physical labour, freeing us to pursue higher objectivesinstead. What Clive Hamilton airily dismisses as a growth fetish has resulted in one hour ofwork today delivering twenty-five times more value than it did in 1850. This has freed hugechunks of our time for leisure, art, sport, learning, and other soul-enriching pursuits. Despite allthe exaggerated talk of an imbalance between work and family life, the average Australiantoday spends a much greater proportion of his or her lifetime free of work than they would hadthey belonged to any previous generation in history. There is another sense, too, in whichcapitalism has freed individuals so they can pursue worthwhile lives, and that lies in its record ofundermining tyrannies and dictatorships. As examples like Pinochets Chile and Putins Russiavividly demonstrate, a free economy does not guarantee a democratic polity or a societygoverned by the rule of law. But as Milton Friedman once pointed out, these latter conditions are

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never found in the absence of a free economy.(12) Historically, it was capitalism that deliveredhumanity from the soul-destroying weight of feudalism. Later, it freed millions from the deadhand of totalitarian socialism. While capitalism may not be a sufficient condition of humanfreedom, it is almost certainly a necessary one.



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Debate

Competition in debate is good for us.

Mike Larimer, NCFCA President, National Christian Forensics & Communications Association

Presidents Letter, July 2009

Competition refines speaking and thinking skills in a way that other activities simply cannotmatch. The pursuit of excellence which accompanies fair and honest competition, in its purestsense, does a great job of preparing our students to engage the culture. But if the awards andaccolades become the goal instead of the training we should impart, then at its best the trophiesare hollow and at its worst weve made an idol of this activity. If those of us who are coaches andleaders lose sight of this fact, then weve also set the stage for the students to follow our exampleand pursue questionable practices in the name of winning. This is unacceptable and compromisesthe 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


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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 studentsof different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding ofa subject. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also forhelping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. Students work through theassignment 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 mincewords when asked about cooperative learning, the educational fad that calls for students towork on assignments in groups.

Since I always end up doing everything, even when I try to get other people to do things, it issort of like working by myself, she said. Except my teacher yells at me for doing everythingand not giving anyone else a chance, which I did give It also takes longer because I have towait 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. Giftedstudents who understand the material dont find themselves challenged, and students less faralong take a back seat in the project to the more gifted, whom they figure can do the workquicker 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 cooperativelearning, lead to similar results.

Cooperative learning reforms arrest achievement

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

Whats worse, these reforms actually seem to arrest student achievement. The most-recentreport on long-term reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progresstests revealed that overall achievement among 9-year-olds has improved nine points since 1971.

Affirmative Brief Applications: Education
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But middle-school students have improved just four points over that period, and high-schoolstudents havent improved at all.

Cooperative learning prevents anyone from achieving their potential.



The middle-school reform movement has sabotaged Americas schools, and this intellectualgenocide must be stopped. By attempting to make all students equal, middle-school progressiveshave given all students subject to their poisonous methods something in common -- none canachieve 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 youngadults unprepared for the hard world awaiting them in the workplace. "The educationestablishment has been too concerned with fostering kids' self-esteem instead of teaching them tolearn 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 theUniversity of Iowa who is an expert in gifted education], who says that children want to competeand can cope with defeat a lot better than adults imagine. "Life hurts your feelings," Mr. Birdsaid. "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 20scholarly 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 theconcept of egalitarianism. In practice, egalitarianism has come to mean that all students shouldget the same educational experience. States have spent millions determining baselinecompetencies, funding lawsuits have erupted across the nation, and tracking has become adirty word The one-size-fits-all approach has become de-rigueur in American public schools.

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Perhaps a more appropriate definition of equity would stress that all students have an equalopportunity to actualize their learning potential. Once we can acknowledge that abilities are notequally distributed, perhaps we can admit that a one-size-fits-all curriculum is absurd.

CL makes good students teach other students


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

Concomitantly, the evolution of instructional deliverythe transition of the teacher from sageto guide on the side and the proliferation of cooperative learning strategieshave [has] furtherenervated the learning environment for the gifted. With egalitarianism, the teacher becomes moreinterested in socialization than learning; the mean becomes more important than the individualscore. 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 helpermethodology has become so widespread in public schools that it is now virtually ubiquitous.

Students helping students doesn't help anyone

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


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 futureEdisons or Einsteins by forcing them to spend large amounts of their time tutoring students whohave no interest in the material? One veteran advanced placement teacher told us recently, Theidea 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. Isintellectual development for gifted students being bartered away so that teachers have a cadre ofunpaid 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 [fromThe Incredibles] are bored at school. "Professors of education think you can improve society bymaking people less competitive," said Christina Hoff Sommers, author of "The War AgainstBoys" and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "But [people] males are wiredfor competition, and if you take it away there's little to interest them in school."

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Teaching for groups leaves good students bored.




Teaching to the lower middle simply does not provide the level of challenge needed by giftedstudents. 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 hourmight be impressive to some observers, but it is drastically underachieving in comparison to itspotential. Similarly, if a cheetah only has to chase after rabbits who run 20 m.p.h., it wont run 70m.p.h.

Cooperative Learning characteristics encourage students not to be seen as smartGregory Stanley (doctorate in history, teacher, author of two history monographs, two novels, and 20



A dumbed down curriculum and a heavy reliance on gifted-student-as-tutor has produced anothermethodologically-induced disaster gifted students as wallflowers. Because relatively fewbenefits 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 barbsfrom less talented class- mates. Contrary to the contentions of supporters of the new equity, someoppositional 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 actto 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 intellectualgrowth of gifted students are not to be found on the athletic playing fields. Yet, for the sake ofdiscussion, what if they did? Suppose that football coaches coached to the middle. Would weinsist that their offensive scheme be simple enough so that even the most intellectuallychallenged player could understand? Because star athletes are already more talented, would wedenounce special coaching for them as undemocratic? Would we put the star quarterback withthe third team so he could tutor them while the coach facilitated learning from the sidelines?

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Would we insist that everyone should have the right to equal playing time so as not to appearelitist? Would we allow every team member to play quarterback while insisting that there was noright 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 donot object to athletes taking pride in their accomplishments.



18/22


IGMc

(TheInternational Genetically Engineered Machines competition)

Summary: Undergraduate students from universities around the world compete in a contest to designthe best genetically engineered machine. The 2008 winners from Slovenia designed a vaccine toprotect 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 theGrand Prize at the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, or iGEM, inCambridge, Mass.

...

Each year, teams from around the world, mainly undergraduates, spend six months designing, and thencreating, bacteria and fungi with new properties for the competition. Entries have included everythingfrom microbial fuel cells to yogurt-induced kidney dialysis.

...

The winning design this year was from Slovenia. The 13-member team used the tools of syntheticbiology o create a prototype vaccine against stomach bug Helicobacter pylori, which can cause ulcersand, 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 iGEMteams."

Affirmative Brief Applications: IGMc
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27647947http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27647947


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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 toannounce 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 ideathat competition allocates scientific effort beneficially has been expressed persuasively by

Michael Polanyi (1951, 1955). Since most recognition is given for discoveries concerningproblems considered most important in the scientific community, and since scientists seekrecognition,2 they tend to try to be first to solve them. They publish their partial findingsquickly, rather than dropping the bombshell of a completely solved problem on their surprisedcolleagues.3 Thus, the competition indicates that important problems receive the attention duethem. Indirect evidence for this is the large effect, independent of publication rates, of thefrequency 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 thesame time, competition forces some scientists to work on less important problems, and it insuresthat some scientists will seek new ways, not the "easiest" and most obvious

Competition encourages differentiation of researchWarren 0. Hagstrom, University of Wisconsin, Madison, COMPETITION IN SCIENCE, American


Competition tends to produce differentiation. When workers are highly concerned about thepossibility 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 probablymistaken because it neglects the functions of redundancy, confusing the meaning of redundancyas that which is superfluous with its meaning as abundance. The competition that leads toanticipation and cases of independent multiple discovery is functional because it assures thatdiscoveries important to scientific growth will in fact be made. In addition, it assures thatdiscoveries will be incorporated in the body of current scientific knowledge; and it shortens thetime required for this to occur. Competitors seldom approach a problem in identical ways, and

Affirmative Brief Applications: Science


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when a discovery is made those who have been anticipated will perceive somewhat differentimplications from it for future research.

Competition in science forces innovation and differentiation.

Warren 0. Hagstrom, University of Wisconsin, Madison, COMPETITION IN SCIENCE, AmericanSociological Review 1974, Vol. 39 (February): 1-18

In any case, competition in science has functional consequences in just such fields, for it forcesinnovation and differentiation. One of the strongest effects described above was betweenconcern at being anticipated and the tendency to shift specialties, and this dependent variablebarely 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 individualscientist. There is also strong evidence that competition stimulates institutional innovation anddifferentiation. Ben- David (1960, 1971; Ben-David and Zloczower, 1962) has shown that thegreater degree of competition in the American university system, and earlier in the Germanuniversities, accounts in part for their greater scientific productivity and greater flexibility thanthe French or British university systems. Riesman (1958) has discussed how competition amongAmerican universities is related to innovation and maintaining academic standards. The linkbetween 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 enoughto provide new types of positions, and institutional competition becomes important

Affirmative Brief Applications: Science


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Sports

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




Parents and teachers are quick to notice that the various philosophies that limit the intellectualgrowth of gifted students are not to be found on the athletic playing fields. Yet, for the sake ofdiscussion, what if they did? Suppose that football coaches coached to the middle. Would weinsist that their offensive scheme be simple enough so that even the most intellectuallychallenged player could understand? Because star athletes are already more talented, would wedenounce special coaching for them as undemocratic? Would we put the star quarterback withthe 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 appearelitist? Would we allow every team member to play quarterback while insisting that there was noright 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 donot object to athletes taking pride in their accomplishments.

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


scholarly articles). Lawrence Baines (professor of education at Texas Tech University,author of threebooks 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

Applying egalitarian principles to the world of sport is not outside the realm of historicalprecedent. One only has to look back to the opening decades of the twentieth century to see whathappened when competition and excellence in athletics were denounced as elitist, undemocratic,and destructive. Starting early in the century and peaking in the 1920s, several womens physicaleducation associations attacked competitive sports for women and succeeded in ridding mostcolleges of them. Leading the battle were such organizations as the American Physical EducationAssociation (APEA) and the Womens 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 blatantlyundemocratic. Under this system, coaches chose a small group of girls representing a smallpercentage of the student body, and gave them intensive preparation, thus depriving the largernumber of girls of their opportunities. The irony here, supporters of the ban on competitionstated, was that these select few did not need the extra training to achieve fitness. The attentionof the coaches could be better spent promoting activities for all students rather than for a limitednumber chosen for their unnatural physical prowess. The NAAF and APEA had tremendous

Affirmative Brief Applications: Sports
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support among collegiate professors of womens physical education. By the end of the 1920s,they had succeeded in eliminating most varsity sports for women. Writing to the president of heruniversity in 1928, University of Kentuckys Womens PE Director claimed that Now thatKentucky 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 girlparticipate in some sport. Blanding further claimed that the ban on intercollegiate basketballhad, 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 notthink their basketball games (which predated the now-famous mens team by a year) werehazardous, undemocratic, or unladylike. Players from the defunct womens team withdrew fromthe Athletic Association in protest. Neither did they participate in the newly restructured PlayDay intramural contests. Players from other schools responded similarly, in several cases burningtheir uniforms in protest (Stanley, 1995).

Eliminating competition eliminated sports.




The results of this nationwide campaign were disastrous for womens sports. At the University ofKentucky, varsity sports did not return to the campus for over fifty years. Two generations ofyoung girls grew up without positive role models in womens sports. By the 1970s, womenathletes had become, in many places, novelties.

Affirmative Brief Applications: Sports
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