OVERVIEW
Forum
Workshops
Forum
Workshops are intended to be miniature think-tanks
capable of providing knockout salvos in killing, in its
tracks, a stirring article or a stirring point of view.
(For information about what a stirring article or
stirring point of view is please visit our Science Site
Overview and Issues for Debates HomePage site overview.)
In rare and special situations, in addition or in lieu of
providing knockout salvos, a Forum Workshop may provide
the seeds for new theoretical work to be done in the
field of the subject at hand acting thus, in a way, as a
breeding incubator of fresh new theoretical ideas. All
this is further amplified below.
1. All Forum
Workshops, with no exception, are in response to a
stirring article or stirring point of view, and there can
be more than one workshop associated with a particular
subject, each operating independently at the same time.
All workshops therefore shall have a subject associated
with them. Examples of such workshops could be
Physics/Special Relativity, Astronomy/Black Holes,
Chemistry/Periodic Table, Biology/Dinosaur Extinction, or
Philosophy/Metaphysics.
2. As a general
rule, a Forum Workshop shall be opened by an educator of
a higher learning institution (such as a College or
University) who shall preside over the created workshop.
Members of the workshop shall be the interested or
selected students of his/her class where the subject in
question was being taught. The said educator, who could
be any interested faculty member, shall organize and
develop the opened workshop as he or she may see fit. The
selected students of a workshop shall be encouraged
individually to give their best shots in destroying the
stirring article(s) in question by pointing to the
weaknesses of the stirring arguments
involved.
3. It is of
paramount importance to emphasize that a scientific point
of view, within the context and framework to be employed
here, is not a belief of some sort --as this is not a
theological seminar. Further, it is equally important to
be stressed that no theoretical argument can be based on
conjectures, speculations, illusions, perceptions,
feelings, and the like. A point of view --within the
context and framework to be employed here-- is nothing
else but a logical result inferred from theories that
must mirror the stringency and rigor of logic to be found
in Mathematics. Mathematics, itself, need not be employed
in delivering an argument to be considered here. What is
needed, as stated, is impeccable logic to sustain the
respective viewpoints. Common Sense is allowed and
encouraged to be a guiding rod as long as it is
accompanied by Rational Thinking. As a result of this
stringent framework, which all workshops need to obey, a
stirring viewpoint can be attacked on only two (2)
grounds:
- either
that an aberration of logic was found to exist in the
derivation of a particular result on which a viewpoint
rests its claim;
- or that a result obtained was based on some
experimental evidence.
Experimental data,
regardless how reliable it may be, cannot be part of any
theoretical argument either as a confirmation or a
negation of a theoretical result. It goes without saying
that a stirring point of view cannot contain in it
arguments based on conjectures, speculations, illusions,
perceptions, feelings, and the like, and that when such
things are discovered to exist they need to be exposed,
as such a finding shall be sufficient of knocking out
immediately a stirring view argument.
4. Once the
presiding educator of a workshop has received the initial
individual responses from the member-students of his/her
workshop, the educator shall convene a meeting where a
preliminary discussion shall commence in evaluating the
strengths and weaknesses of each such response. As a
result of the stated meeting, the students shall be
encouraged to refine their respective answers and submit
them for publication in the workshops' Publication Forum.
Once, we have received those answers, we shall pass them
to the author(s) of the stirring view in question and
shall solicit a reply from the respective author(s).
After an opportunity for a replay is given, we, with the
exception of obvious typo errors, shall publish, unedited
and unabridged, all the material received for publication
with respect to the topic involved.
5. Should the
presiding educator of the workshop see merits in the
reply or replays posted with respect to the various
points made, the educator shall convoke a second meeting
with the workshop's class to discuss the outstanding
issues which need to be responded to. Again each member
of the workshop shall be encouraged to give his or her
best shot at disposing of the outstanding issues. After
the responses of the workshop group are in, the presiding
educator shall call for the third meeting with the group
to analyze the responses received. As a result of that
discussion, the students shall again be encouraged to
refine their answers before submitting them for
publication in the second round of the workshops'
Publication Forum. This process can be repeated up to
five (5) times, i.e., a workshop can have up to
five (5) rounds of publishing.
6. Should, on the
contrary, the presiding educator of the workshop see no
merits in continuing to debate the stirring point of
view, the educator shall close forthwith the respective
workshop through a simple email notice. No reason or
justification needs to be given for closing the workshop.
The presiding educator shall have, at all times, the
undisputed power of terminating the workshop that he or
she has created.
7. At any time
during the life of a workshop or after its expiration, we
can, at our own discretion, publish the work of a
particular member of the workshop in our general pool of
articles corresponding to the subject at hand. The
respective student shall receive from us a Merit Citation
and his or her name shall be placed permanently in our
Merit Citations section.
8. Should a member
of a workshop decide to switch sides, i.e., decide to
support the stirring point of view, then such a member
shall be called a dissenting member of the workshop.
9. At the
termination of a workshop, the presiding educator may, at
the educator's discretion, summarize the workshop's work
by submitting an article for publication in the general
pool of articles with respect to the subject and the
debating issues at hand.
10. A faculty
educator, at his or her initiative, may pick up a
different subject of debate and deliberation than the one
that was being offered to him or her through the
following mechanism and procedure:
i) Since any issue
of debate must commence with a singular or devil
advocate's point of view, the educator may submit as an
anonymous author, his or her initial stirring article
with the respective issue of debate.
ii) After the
educator's anonymous initial stirring article is
published, the educator may proceed in the normal fashion
with forming his workshop designed to kill the stirring
view in question.
11. Finally, in
those rare situations that a workshop cannot, after five
rounds of debates, take out a stirring point of view
article or that the workshop itself is swept away by the
persuasion and force of the stirring view arguments
ending up endorsing it, this shall be noted in the
Reference Folder of the respective subject. The work of
such a workshop, in an automatic fashion, shall be
referred for further analysis and scrutiny to the general
Forum of Debates section.
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