Kate Maloney
Staff reporter
It had been raining practically non-stop the entire day and the sky was an empty, isolating gray. The campus was noticeably quiet for a Friday night as people hibernated in their dorms to avoid the drear and drabness.Yet, at 9:00 in the evening, over 40 McDaniel students drug themselves out of their warm and cozy rooms to gather in Hill Hall 108 to watch the first of a series of presidential debates.
The event, hosted by the Philosophy Club, joined other debate-watching parties occurring simultaneously at local bars, hip theaters, and neighborhood cafes across the nation. However, instead of pints of beer, bags of popcorn, or frothy cappuccino, McDaniel’s party boasted Bingo cards and plenty of chocolate. And not your grandmother’s Bingo cards either ? the squares were filled with logical fallacies such as ‘slippery slope’, ‘false analogy’, and ‘appeal to ignorance’.
Many of the present students probably would have been watching the debate in their rooms anyway, but Peter Bradley, assistant professor of Philosophy, speculates that McDaniel students also realize that this year’s election is a decisive one. He believes the large turnout and immense student interest in this year’s election partially stem from political blunders of the last eight years which have taught everyone that there are real consequences to presidential politics.
Senior Courtney Nightengale agrees, “With the continuing unpopularity of Iraq and the recent economic downturn, Americans want a president who will lead them out of uncertainty and back to typical American prosperity.”
Also a member of Maryland Student Legislature, Nightengale was most interested in the debate as a stimulus for the heated discussion that would surely follow.
Incite enthusiasm and discussion it did. As the candidates were welcomed on stage, the room erupted into claps and cheers and this energy lingered throughout the debate. Friends whispered to one another when interesting (or absurd) points were made and arms were periodically thrown into the air either out of frustration, disagreement, disbelief or some combination thereof. And there were certainly a fair share of communal sighs, snickers, eye rolls, and outright laughter.
The original idea for a debate party game centered around detecting illogical reasoning is perhaps not surprisingly accredited to Anne Nester, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, who teachers Critical Thinking at McDaniel. After reading that students at the University of North Carolina suggested throwing an ‘Identify the Fallacy’ party on a popular philosophy blog, Nester thought out loud to her colleague, Bradley, that it would be a more compelling idea if it was something like a fallacy bingo party. And bingo?the event came to fruition.
When asked if Bradley felt there was a winner of the debate, he responded, “No, I’m interested in the reasoning, not the policies, and definitely not the kind of demographic-based political analysis offered by most pundits.”
Even as far as the reasoning goes, he does not think there is much to speak of on either side: “Neither candidate offered an instance of significant reasoning, and neither candidate offered any ‘howler’ fallacies like some of the ones in the past.”
However, he interestingly noticed that the fallacy-per-minute count, especially use of loaded language, was significantly higher once the topic diverged from the economy and turned to foreign policy. Due to pressing circumstances surrounding the federal bail-out package that died in the House earlier the same week which intended to free up failing credit markets, the candidates were expected to first comment on the nation’s economic condition before moving on to the central topic of the debate ? foreign policy.
The increase of faulty logic after the first three questions regarding the economy causes Bradley to suspect that the candidates’ debate over foreign policy really consisted merely of memorized bullet points.
Bradley said, “In retrospect, it seems that the first three questions were the most enlightening regarding the reasoning abilities of these candidates. All the rest was playing to script.”
So, how did the candidates measure up? According to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted the day after the debate, American viewers credit Obama as having done a better job than McCain with the first debate by a 46% to 34% margin, regardless of which candidate they happen to support. However, the winner was much less clear among debate fallacy bingo players. While no official measure was used, the crowd reactions made it clear that there were worrisome claims and poor reasoning coming from both sides of the stage.