COUNTERING

Joseph Harris describes forwarding as “yes, and…” and countering as “on the other hand…” or “yes, but…”

He argues that the aim of countering is to open up new lines of inquiry. The main goal is to not to prove how much smarter you are but to add to the conversation of the subject. Countering pushed beyond a mere disagreement.

Harris demonstrates how to counter in three steps.

Arguing the other side – the goal in arguing the other side is to clearly present exactly what it is you disagree with and why. But even one step further, try to state how something is incomplete rather than wrong.

Uncovering values – the goal in uncovering values is to examine a word or concept that a text has left undefined or unexamined. These values often turn out to be connected to deep cultural beliefs such as race, gender, sexuality, social class and religion.

Dissenting – When dissenting, writers first want to show that a certain consensus exists and then define his/her position against the consensus. It is common for a writer to use three examples when dissenting a common consensus to suggest a trend.

In the denverpost.com blog HARK Nelson Bock, contributing blogger, wrote The first Word of God was creation itself: Can science and faith serve each other? In this post, Bock presents both arguments of the debate of creation and evolution and presents his own ideas on the matter. Bock starts out his post with:

One of the big questions which confronts us these days is the relationship of science to faith. Some people want to say that they are incompatible, but I reject this simplistic dichotomy.

And he ends with

I want to suggest that the idea of evolution is much more compatible with this wisdom than is the idea that we were created independently from the rest of creation. If there’s one truth that evolution illustrates, it’s that we came from the same place as all the rest of the creatures, that our history and our destiny are irrevocably bound up with the rest of creation.

Bock decides to take a very sensitive subject and give his own two cents. I think he needed to use more authorization (forwarding) in order to keep it out of the first person to show more expertise. His example of countering isn’t the best but it is the one that I found.

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