[jhbadger]

Yeah, I was in a debate team in high school. I suppose it is good training for people who end up becoming lawyers and have to defend people that they may or may not really believe are innocent, but as someone who ended up going into science I see how it is a bit grotesque -- the idea in competitive debates is that rhetoric matters more than actual factual information and that a good debater can argue either side with equal ease.

[Eugeleo]

I'm an European CS student, and I was a part of debate team in high school as well. You are certainly right that lawyers will get most of them, since they are closely related to actual lawyer work.

On the other hand, I don't think rhetoric matters more than facts. At least in my country, most of the arguments in the debate have to be based on some data/studies to be taken seriously. You still have to be a good speaker, of course, because you have to get the point across, but you can't win the debate without a prepared case just because you are charismatic.

Lots of times we had to argue for both sides during the tournament; the topics were chosen accordingly, as not to be "solvable". Of course in normal world you probably want to find some kind of compromise, but to be able to do that, you have to assess what each course of action will achieve. And debating helps you build the skillset to do just that.