Teaching Argument Writing with Frankenstories

Rebuttal

"How might any of these components be contested?"

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In a nutshell

  • We can challenge any part of an argument.
    • The standard term for this is rebuttal.
    • Alternatively, you could use terms like object, challenge, dispute, contest, or attack.
  • The most common targets are reasons and evidence:
    • "This evidence is not true!"
    • "That evidence was misinterpreted!"
    • "This other evidence was left out entirely!"
    • "And none of the legitimate evidence supports your reasoning!"
  • If we dig a little deeper, we can often challenge the underlying assumptions and backing in the same way:
    • "You're assuming downtown residents and businesses are our priority, when in fact our priority is commuters!"
  • We can also challenge the issue ("It's not relevant, doesn't exist") and limits ("It will have a smaller impact, benefit fewer people").

Many of us have long been told that saturated fat, the type found in meat, butter and cheese, causes heart disease. But a large and exhaustive new analysis by a team of international scientists found no evidence that eating saturated fat increased heart attacks and other cardiac events.

"Study Questions Fat and Heart Disease Link"

The New York Times has done it again, reporting on a summary of studies on the associations of various dietary and clinical risk factors with heart disease in a way that creates, in my opinion, more confusion than clarity. According to journalist Anahad O’Connor, the researchers claimed that saturated fat, “the type found in meat, butter and cheese”, does not cause heart disease, suggesting that it is not as bad as we have been led to believe. Both the researchers’ report and the journalist’s commentary illustrate the huge costs of scientific reductionism.

"A Fallacious, Faulty and Foolish Discussion About Saturated Fat"

Types of rebuttal

  • Dispute facts: "There is no traffic problem."
  • Dispute causality: "Cars aren't causing the traffic."
  • Dispute degree: "The traffic isn't a problem that often."
  • Introduce new facts and considerations: "What about public transport? Or driverless cars?"

Fount of knowledge to puddle of facts

by Tom Gauld, New Scientist

Going deeper

  • A good argument will usually anticipate possible objections and provide counter-counter-arguments.
  • In a discursive argument, the speaker might be as interested in the rebuttal as they are in the main argument, because they want to explore all sides of an issue.

In Frankenstories

  • Rebuttal appears in R4 of the canonical format, when players are asked to anticipate and respond to objections.
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