Socio-science: Debates
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Nanotechnology Debate Activity
Your task is a debate. The first thing you will need to do, unless already done is to form a debate team. A debate team is composed of three members, the first, second and third speaker. More details of your roles are down below. You will be assigned to do the negative or the affirmative side of one of these four topics below. Your classmates will either be doing one of the other topics or against you in this debate.
A debate is an educational argument between two teams, arguing over a statement. Affirmative supports the statement, negative goes against the statement.
There are 2 teams of 3. 1 team goes against a statement, the other for the statement, these are known as the negative and affirmative teams. Each speaker should be speaking for about 3 minutes. Your teachers should allow you around 30 seconds between each speaker to think of rebuttals.
Order of speakers, and what you should do in each role:
The first affirmative speaker speaks. Define topic. Give the team split (tell audience what each speaker is discussing). Establish stance. State points for their argument. (1 or 2 ideas max).
First negative: Rebuttal. Tell audience what each speaker is going to discuss. Establish stance. State points for their argument. (1 idea or 2 ideas max).
Second positive: Rebuttal. State points for their argument. (2 ideas).
Second negative: Rebuttal. State points for their argument. (2 ideas).
Third positive: Rebuttal. Summarise points from previous speakers.
Third negative: Rebuttal. Summarise points from previous speakers.
Third speakers never bring up new points!!!
What is a rebuttal?
A rebuttal works to counter or weaken an argument that the opposing team has made. While good rebuttals can have evidence, if you note them contradicting themselves or saying something that doesn’t make sense (if you feel they jumped to a conclusion, without explaining that conclusion enough), comment on that. Note: These can’t be insults to the opposing team’s behaviour, appearance, intelligence or anything like that. It is unprofessional.
Note half arguments do not work: Say you were on the negative for one of the topics below, using nanotechnology in sports equipment. You can’t say it’s acceptable in some circumstances. However, for another topic below, should we use nanotech to enhance humans, the nanotechnology can be used as treatments for them. It is acceptable for the negative side to limit that aspect.
The four following topics are heavily connected to nanotechnology, and as such before doing these debates, it may be good to check other features of this website to get a better understanding of what nanotechnology is.
The four topics are:
1. Should the general public and companies be allowed to use nanotechnology for security purposes? (Example: Security cameras you can’t see).
Ideas to consider: Aspects of freedom and benefits of nanotechnology in general to society. Privacy issues, personal health problems, and safety.
2. Should nanotechnology be used to enhance people?
Ideas to consider: These enhancement tools may be normally used as medicines. How much will these things cost? Access to the enhancements? Fair competition? What can be considered normal?
3. Should nanotechnology be allowed in competitive sports?
Ideas to consider: How does it affect the performance of athletes, what problems are there with this?
4. Should nanotechnology be used for our military purposes?
Ideas to consider: The dangers of a new arms race? The safety and wellbeing of our soldiers? Potential dangers that can happen from these new developments.
You will need to use your knowledge, along with other knowledge given to you and some research to prepare your arguments for this debate.
How is a debate done?
Teachers would be asking themselves these questions and possibly assessing you on these points. Take these questions into consideration.
How does your arguments sound? Is your argument poorly constructed? Are you able to do the debate properly? Teachers will be asking for any cue cards you used, and pieces of paper you used for deciding your points, evidence, and how you structured your debate.
Marking Criteria: Out of 100:
Public speaking abilities: (Out of 30): How did they handle speaking in front of a class? Did they maintain eye contact with audience, or read from a piece of paper?
Following the structure of the debate: (Out of 25): Did students follow the proper structure of the debate. Did the third speaker bring up any new points, did speaker 1 introduce the topic, their stance and their fellow debaters? Did speaker 2 focus mainly on their arguments outside of rebuttals at the start of the debate?
Content of the debate?: (Out of 25 marks): How well thought were their arguments? Were they reasonable?
References: Presence of a reference list. (Out of 5 marks).
Time limit: (Out of 15 marks): Did students fit into a time limit, or did they go for too long or too short. Time limit should be 3 minutes for each student.
Topic 1 Student
Your task is to think of at least 2 arguments for your side of the debate.
Two is enough if both are fairly strong, but three arguments may be better. It is not suggested to go over three ideas. Both you and your opposition will have access to this information, so you can use this information to help your research, and start considering what they might say, so that you can improve your counterarguments (rebuttals) against them.
Note: If you are looking for more specific information on a webpage, use the ctrl+f function, and type keywords in the search bar that comes up, this will help you look for specific keywords. Good luck.
The topic: Should the public and companies have access to nanotechnology for security and tracking purposes?
Nanotechnology can be used for a variety of reasons. These reasons can be used to heighten security in several places, via the use of cameras that can’t be seen by the naked human eye, and other methods.
With the use of nanotechnology, attachable tracking devices could be in the future. At the moment it isn’t possible, however the idea that these devices can be possibly created (p.10, 1.), should be considered and talked about.
While these tracking devices can be used to help find missing people and reduce the numbers of kidnapping cases, it can be misused. It can lead to massive problems with people’s privacy, and others could abuse it to know where you are all the time.
Another use that may come about are cameras invisible to the eye. There already exists a camera that is reported to be 1x1x1mm big, incredibly small and difficult to see with the human eye (p.4, 2).
Technology does improve over time, and with these ones having a resolution of 62,500 pixels, it isn’t hard to imagine, how the quality of these image can be improved. The main purpose of this camera is to enable doctors to be able to see inside the human body a bit more easily, however these cameras can be possibly used to spy on other people.
References:
2. https://www.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/zv/en/press-media/2011/pdfs/rn3_2011_M%C3%84RZ.pdf
Topic 2 students
Your task is to think of at least 2 arguments for your side of the debate. Both you and your opponents will have access to this information, so you can use this information to help your research, and start considering what they might say, so that you can improve your counterarguments (rebuttals) against them.
Note: If you are looking for more specific information on a page, use the ctrl+f function, and type keywords for what you are looking for in the search bar that comes up. Good luck.
Should nanotechnology be used to enhance people?
With nanotechnology, the possibilities of medicine have improved. With nanotechnology, however medicine can possibly be used to improve the body. These enhanced people can do things possibly better than most people could.
While this issue isn’t entirely new, with other drugs that can be used to do similar things, nanotechnology adds more ways for people to improve themselves.
These medications can be made in mind to help people in therapy. However, these same medications can possibly help people perform better in other tasks. For example, nanotechnology used to help reduce memory loss can be used to help normal people improve their memory. (1.) This means normal people can use this technology to help improve their memory to be able to perform better in tests, and exams.
These can also be possibly used to be able to help people improve other things, like their strength, agility and other things. This can push the limits of what people can do in the future.
However, this has several problems. One of the main problems is the idea of fair competition. People that have used this technology to improve themselves, will have an advantage over others that didn’t. Another problem is if everybody is able to afford the medications, or if only certain people can.
If only certain people, rich enough to afford the enhancements are able to use it, it’s unfair to those who are unable to do so. The gap between the rich and the poor (2.) may widen, as this gives those already rich, a better edge over their competition.
References:
1. https://foresight.org/policy/brief2.html
2. http://www.thepipettepen.com/blog/nanomedicine-how-much-are-we-willing-to-pay/
Topic 3 students:
Your task is in your team of 3 to prepare for your side of this debate. If you are affirmative, support the following statement. If you are negative go against the following statement. You can’t go against it but say there should be some things allowed. You can’t support it but say there should be some restrictions (outside of separate leagues).
Note: If you are looking for more specific information on a page, use the ctrl+f function, and type keywords in the search bar that comes up. Your topic is:
Should nanotechnology be allowed in competitive sports?
Good luck, here is some information both sides have access to, to help you get started:
Every athlete uses some kind of equipment in their professional career. These can range from racquets used in tennis, cricket bats, the clothes they wear. With nanoscience the possibility to improve the equipment they use to better the performance of these athletes.
These improvements include things like making their equipment more flexible, stable, lighter and allowing a better feel when it comes to moving. (1) These things will enable athletes to be faster, and able to respond to things quicker, enabling them to have better performance on the field as a whole. This could lead to better outcomes and more records broken as boundaries of what we can accomplish are pushed further.
However, these improvements bring up the questions over fair competition? What if eventually competitions don’t just come down to whose better in their field, but who has the better equipment? How will we be able to identify those that have special equipment to help them, and those that don’t? (2). The idea and concept of fair play is questioned by these enhancements.
References:
1. https://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=30661.php
2. https://www.sporttechie.com/the-present-and-future-impacts-of-nanotechnology-in-sports/
Topic 4 students:
Your task is in your team of 3 to prepare for your side of this debate. If you are affirmative, support the following statement. If you are negative go against the following statement. You can’t support it but say there should be some restrictions.
Note: If you are looking for more specific information on a page, use the ctrl+f function, and type keywords in the search bar that comes up. Your topic is:
Should nanotechnology be used for military purposes?
Good luck to both sides:
As time progresses, soldiers will have to deal with more challenges. Nanotechnology can help these soldiers deal with these problems. Nanotechnology can have a wide range of uses in the military. It could be something as simple as providing armour that weighs less, better precision using software to help our soldiers in the military in their duty for this country. (1)
However, there are some costs to this better equipment for our soldiers. With nanoscience involved a variety of new, and dangerous controversial weapons could be created. With this one of them can be the use of small devices in order to transmit biological or chemical weapons directly to a target. With the possibility of creating weapons to target specific genetic markers (ethnic groups) as well. (2)
Nanotechnology in the military does have more benefits as well for the military, with its soldiers can become more agile, and it enables them access to better medicines quicker, and better tools for observing their surrounding area and communication. (1)
References:
Marking Criteria: Out of 100:
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Public speaking abilities: (Out of 30): How did you handle speaking in front of a class? Did you maintain eye contact with the audience, or read from a piece of paper? Did you sound clear, and was able to be understood?
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Following the structure of the debate: (Out of 25): Did your team follow the proper structure of the debate. Did the third speaker bring up any new points, did speaker 1 introduce the topic, their stance and their fellow debaters? Did speaker 2 focus mainly on their arguments outside of rebuttals at the start of the debate?
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Content of the debate?: (Out of 25 marks): How well thought were your arguments? Were they reasonable?
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References: Presence of a reference list. (Out of 5 marks). Have a piece of paper showing the URL’s of where you got your information from.
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Time limit: (Out of 15 marks): Did your team fit into a time limit. Did you go for too long? Too short? Your limit should be around 3 minutes for each speaker.