SuperDebate The Anti-Debate
A special recorded conversation
Does it make sense to talk about the chances that God exists, that a moral claim is true, or that one Beatles album is objectively the best?
Economist · George Mason University
Statistician · University of Cambridge
Produced in partnership withStephanie Lepp · Synthesis MediaCo-producer and on-camera participant01The question
Probability is extraordinarily powerful when the uncertainty is measurable.
But some of the questions humans care about most are not obviously repeatable experiments.
Robin Hanson and David Spiegelhalter approach uncertainty from overlapping intellectual traditions, but they do not draw the boundary in exactly the same place.
On October 9, they will try to find out where that boundary actually is.
The question isn't whether probability is useful. It's how far probabilistic thinking can legitimately go.
02The participants
Economist · George Mason University
Robin Hanson is an economist, social scientist, and longtime advocate for using explicit probabilistic reasoning to improve how people make decisions. His work spans prediction markets, futarchy, social behavior, artificial intelligence, and the limits of conventional institutions.
He has spent decades exploring what happens when we force vague beliefs to become explicit predictions.
Robin's SuperDebate profile
Statistician · University of Cambridge
David Spiegelhalter is one of the world's best-known communicators of statistics, risk, and uncertainty. His work examines not only how uncertainty can be quantified, but how numbers should be interpreted, communicated, and understood when evidence is incomplete.
He is the author of The Art of Statistics and The Art of Uncertainty.
David's SuperDebate profile03Why these two
Their challenge was finding the edge.
This pairing did not begin with two people looking for something to fight about.
Hanson is deeply sympathetic to Bayesian reasoning. Spiegelhalter has spent his career working with probability and uncertainty.
Their challenge was finding the edge.
In their conversations leading up to the event, the question became increasingly precise: there are situations where assigning a probability clearly improves reasoning. There are situations where doing so may create an illusion of precision.
Where is the line?
That is the disagreement. And it is exactly the kind of disagreement the Anti-Debate is designed to explore.
04This is an Anti-Debate
Not every disagreement needs a winner.
The Anti-Debate begins like a debate. Each participant states a position. Each gets a chance to challenge the other.
But instead of stopping when the clash becomes clear, the format asks both participants to continue.
What do you actually disagree about?
Opening positions, rebuttals, and direct discussion.
Can you state the other person's position so well they recognize it?
Each participant makes the strongest version of the other's view.
What could change your mind?
Both identify the assumptions or evidence their own position depends on.
What can the two perspectives reveal together?
The goal is not forced agreement. It is a more complete map of the question.
What became clearer?
Both participants close with what changed, expanded, or became more precise.
Explore the approach
The Anti-Debate makes room for rigorous disagreement, mutual understanding and a fuller picture of the question.
This conversation is co-produced by SuperDebate and Stephanie Lepp of Synthesis Media.
05Host & production
Co-producer · On camera
Producer & storyteller · Synthesis Media
Stephanie Lepp is a producer and storyteller who leads Synthesis Media. She is partnering with SuperDebate to co-produce this Anti-Debate and will join the conversation on camera.
Her work explores how different perspectives can inform one another. She previously served as Executive Producer at the Center for Humane Technology.
About Stephanie
Host
Founder & CEO, SuperDebate
John Connor founded SuperDebate to create better places for serious disagreement: competitive enough to expose weak ideas, but open enough for people to actually learn from one another.
For this Anti-Debate, John will guide Hanson and Spiegelhalter from the initial clash through the collaborative portions of the conversation.
About John06The recording
Recording October 9, 2026
This is a recorded session, rather than a public livestream. The full conversation will be released afterward.
We'll send you the full conversation when it is released.
07Preparation & sources
Before the Anti-Debate, Robin and David are exchanging a small number of references that best represent how they think about the question.
We'll share Robin's selected reading here once received.
We'll share David's selected reading here once received.
Serious disagreement.
A more complete picture.
