The question is whether the student in question actually believed it, or was just arguing the position for the sake of the discussion.

There are less asinine methods of learning how to debate a topic that has little to no supporting evidence.

There are less asinine methods of learning how to debate a topic that has little to no supporting evidence.

You are a liar. Bill Nye crushed Ken Ham as judged by debate judges and popular vote. Creationism, flat-Earth and geocentric universe are all idiocy now.

I think your basic idea is good—students (at every level) should constantly question and challenge things, even if they are commonly accepted as truths and have authority behind them. That is how advances in thinking and technology happen. There is nothing to be gained or learned, however, from trying to argue facts. While scientific theories and social beliefs (things that *can* be debated) may change and evolve, there are things that are incontrovertible facts (the earth is round, gravity exists). As a teacher, I would be doing a huge disservice to my students if I allowed them to try and argue that "2 + 2= 5". If your premise is based on incorrect, unsupported, or unverifiable information, then your conclusion is wrong—no matter how clever or well-constructed your argument is. That's one of the basic rules of debate and it would be counterproductive to allow students to violate it and not correct them on it.

On one hand I get where you're coming from. On the other hand the earth is obviously not flat, there is no reasonable argument for why it would be that holds up against any of the "accepted knowledge" pointing to the contrary, and having a week long argument about it because one delusional person can't figure his shit out sounds like the most annoying thing you could possibly have to deal with in a classroom setting.

I assure you the "creationist", as you call him, did not win. The subject of debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham was whether the Christian version of creationism should be included in American education; something that obviously did not pass (as creationism is not taught as fact in public schools.) Your entire argument is based upon your own assumption that Bill Ham "won" the debate. I assume you believe this because the audience, Ham's supporters, agreed with him. Which sort of makes you a hypocrite for not fact checking.

Snopes is your friend.

It’s Blitzen (lightning) and Donner should be Dunder (thunder.)

If you look up flat earth theory, which I did after reading this, you'll find out some amazing stuff that people actually believe including some celebrities. Apparently the North Pole is the center of the Earth with Antarctica circles the perimeter of the known world as a wall of ice that holds the sea in place from the unknown lands beyond. Seasons are due to a movement of the circling sun inward and outward from the North Pole. People that circumnavigate the globe are just making a circle, and space is a hoax/scam. A few of these seem to relate to Game of Thrones, which is a large part of my joke above. My first argument against the theory that was meticulously defended on the site I visited, was that the theory could explain the 24 hours of daylight at the North Pole, but not the South Pole. When I pretended to forget the reindeer's fluctuating name, it is a tribute to the show in which many viewers forget the name of the dragon that died, was resurrected, and used to bring down a wall of ice that kept an undead horde out of the known world for thousands of years. I'm pretty sure after reading up on this theory, that George R. R. Martin's series is just trying to make a more believable version of this crazy theory.

your play on Game of Thrones was brilliant...Bravo

Comparing the map to the globe, perhaps?

Makes sense.

you don't fall off because it's a Möbius strip duh

Telling someone that believes the earth is flat and telling them to walk to the edge to fall off might not work if they believe in gravity.