Dr. Fauci Is Not Going to Debate You (or Me)
Lots of other people have commented on the general absurdity here, so I will just point out: Medical research is not really a thing you can “debate” in the sense of classical rhetoric. The research methodologies are open to critique, their findings open to interpretation, the theories always subject to revision in light of new evidence –– but this is worlds away from the classical rhetorical structure of a traditional debate, in which the goal is to “score points,” with judges or with an audience.
There’s a reason Chemistry class doesn’t (or at any rate shouldn’t) look much like Debate Club; debate functions much more like arguments in a courtroom trial than it does like a research lab.
We need both, or so I’d contend.
We do ourselves, and one another, and the facts at hand, a disservice when we confuse them.
Which, honestly, until I read Dr. Oz’s Tweet, wasn’t a thing I knew we could do.
Seriously: Who does this?
Dr. Oz, apparently. I hope not Dr. Fauci.
I hope not the rest of us.
