SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Jerry Brown wasted no time Tuesday in signing a contentious California bill to impose one of the strictest school vaccination laws in the country following an outbreak of measles at Disneyland late last year.
rebuttal - the speech act of refuting by offering a contrary contention or argument. refutation, defence, defense - the speech act of answering an attack on your assertions; his refutation of the charges was short and persuasive; in defense he said the other man started it.
Debate, without rebuttals, would merely be a series of speeches with no relation to each other. Like ships passing in the night, there will be no clash, no conflict and ultimately, no debate. Rebuttal, like argumentation, is one of the foundations of debate. What is rebuttal then? It is a speaker saying that an opponent's argument is not valid and showing why it is not valid. If argument is about building logic links in a case, then rebuttal is about the breaking of these links.