Kurr and Solis Reach Escape Velocity with Asteroids Affirmative
The WPDU tandem of Jeff Kurr and Chris Solis reeled off two consecutive strong tournament appearances, qualifying for elimination round competition at the University of Richmond on October 10-12 and West Point on October 16-18.
A key factor propelling their success has been the early season launch of their affirmative case dealing with asteroids. Kurr, a junior actuarial math/finance major from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Solis, a first-year student from San Antonio, Texas, studying pharmaceutical chemistry, won all seven of their affirmative debates in the preliminary rounds at Richmond and West Point.
Drawing on research by nuclear physicists and aerospace engineers, Kurr and Solis' affirmative case warns of the increasing threat posed by objects circling the Earth in near orbit. For example, they quote Thomas Jones, of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, to establish, "the effects of a 1-km asteroid strike on today's fragile, interconnected human society would probably cause global climatic disruptions, widespread crop failures, and worldwide famine"
The problem, Kurr and Solis discovered in preseason research with graduate student coach Joseph Packer, is that U.S. policy currently favors a "one-approach-fits-all" deflection strategy that would use stand-off nuclear weapons to protect the Earth from incoming asteroids. In their affirmative case, Kurr and Solis contend that this approach is unnecessarily costly, likely to be ineffective, and detracts from more promising, non-nuclear deflection techniques.
Kurr explained the asteroids affirmative's recent success by saying it "tends to throw a curveball at the negative team," as most other school's research on the national nuclear weapons topic has covered more conventional aspects of U.S. policy, such as nuclear targeting and no-first-use.
At West Point, Kurr and Solis downed opponents from Binghamton, Clarion, and Rochester on the way to 5-1 record and the number two seed in the preliminary rounds. They blew past Binghamton again in the quarterfinals, ultimately dropping a close 2-1 decision in the semifinals against Cornell.
Regarding the Kurr/Solis pair, graduate coach Matt Gayetsky said "they're really developing synergy as a team, complementing each other well." Kurr was named the seventh speaker in the open division, while racking up a gaudy 8.3 Judge Variance, the second highest rating in the tournament.
During action on the prior weekend, Pitt's dynamite novice duo of Parhas Minhas and Jayson Myers rumbled to the elimination rounds after posting a 5-2 record in prelims. Minhas copped fourth speaker honors, while Myers was ranked 11th best speaker in a large field of 72 novice debaters.
Thanks to Pitt's strong back-to-back tournament performances, the WPDU is now knocking on the door of a top 25 national ranking, having surged past rivals Baylor, Georgia and Michigan State in overall NDT points. The team caps off its fall term of competition at the Wake Forest Shirley Classic tournament in Winston-Salem, NC next month.