A) I'm experienced with paleontology. While I do often bring that up as I'm proud of it, I never use it in debates to say "WELL MY VOICE CARRIES MORE WEIGHT THAN YOURS BECAUSE I'VE SPENT MY LIFE STUDYING THIS THING." That's just asinine, and frankly, quite flawed. You've paid no attention to any lurking variables. What if the other person hasn't got a degree but is self taught to the point where he has knowledge as extensive as yours? B) Of course people are hating on you. Let's break this down. Let X be any positive integer representing your skill level in the debate. Let's say 5. This represents yourself at a base level. Let Y be the added skill based on your engineering expertise. Let's say 3 (it doesn't really matter what these numbers are as long as they are positive integers). Therefore, your total skill is represented by X + Y. This is equivalent to 8, in this case. Now, for the other person, you have no idea who he or she is. Let his/her base skill be represented by A. You have no information about A's skill level in the debate. Let B be the added skill based on whatever expertise this person may or may not have with the subject (0 would mean that the person has no added expertise, any non zero positive integer would mean some expertise). Therefore, that person's total skill is represented by A + B. Since we have no knowledge of the values A and B, we leave it as it is. By your post, you are complaining about why people are reacting in a hostile manner [i]after[/i] you prove them wrong. So this means that you have successfully shown a higher skill level in the debate. Therefore, 8 [Your skill level] > (A + B) [Their skill level] Since you've brought up your "engineering student" credit as a reason for being more intelligent and thus winning the debate (as you say here, when you say "I'm getting tired of everyone treating me bad simply because I have a brighter future than most people and have proven myself to be intelligent-" this meaning you see the engineering credit as a method of gauging intelligence, which essentially translates into skill in this debate). Therefore, since you've basically stated that you've won [i]because[/i] of your engineering student credit, you're stating that you've won because Y is greater than B. This is a flawed conclusion. So far you know that your total skill is greater than the other person's skill- 8 > (A + B). 8 > (A + B) Can be rewritten as 5 + 3 > (A + B) You are saying that 3 > B Let's break up the possible values for the other side into cases. There will be three cases- one where B is 2, one where B is 1, and one where B is 0. Case 1: Other Side has an Engineering Skill is 0 1+0 2+0 3+0 4+0 5+0 6+0 7+0 Case 2: Other Side has an Engineering Skill of 1 1+1 2+1 3+1 4+1 5+1 6+1 Case 3: Other Side has an Engineering Skill of 2 1+2 2+2 3+2 4+2 5+2 Now what do these Cases all have in common? They maintain a constant value for B for each trial they're put through, but the value of A is shifting. We are [i]assuming[/i] values for A. By our previous statement: [quote]You have no information about A's skill level in the debate.[/quote] You have no way of knowing that A > 7 in Case 2 or that A > 6 in Case 3. The argument could be made that it A is a surefire > 8 for Case 1 as you already know your total is less than 8, but remember, you are then limiting your correct value of B to 1 case. You don't know what B equals either (which is why it was left as a variable). Therefore, your logic is flawed and makes assumptions about the other person that do not take into account extraneous variables. C) umad?