埃琳娜·普罗霍罗娃是木筏的主人，也是木筏辩论的主人
没有什么能阻止埃琳娜·普罗霍罗娃（Elena Prokhorova）赢得周一晚上的木筏辩论，并有权划船离开她和三位同事”遭遇海难”的岛屿。
Not a mini-Mardi Gras-style parade of large toy dinosaurs, part of a slickly organized campaign by Rowan Lockwood, professor of 地质、 who was defending the natural and computational sciences.
Not the storage-bin sized carton of props brought on stage by Assistant Professor of 政府 Marcus Holmes, defending social sciences.
Not the droll, comedic, message-in-a-bottle-from-W&M-administration routine performed by Associate Professor of 数学 Ryan Vinroot, playing the devil’s advocate.
Not even the precious smile and participation of Lockwood’s adorable nine-year-old daughter, Lyra, who probably had no idea the essential role science played in the ham sandwich she’d eaten for lunch that day.
A hyper, enthusiastic, overflow audience in Phi Beta Kappa Hall basked in the university’s annual exercise in which four professors from diverse disciplines are stranded on a desert island with the only mechanism of escape a raft large enough for one. In order to leave, they must argue the worth of their disciplines to society, which occurred under the watchful eye of “judge” 维吉尼亚Torczon, dean of graduate studies and research.
{{youtube:medium:center|VHhv_XRT-o8, 2016年最佳木筏辩论}}
从观众的掌声来看，普罗霍罗娃以惊人的势均力敌战胜了洛克伍德。 福尔摩斯和文鲁特很勇敢，但早早就落后了，再也没有赶上来。
Representing the humanities, Prokhorova, a 俄罗斯的研究 and 电影和媒体研究 associate professor whose only prop was a mask of Vladimir Putin that she donned at opportune times, lit into the opposition with a good-natured attack.
“Look at the mess in which we live,” she began, noting that many of the world's most severe problems are man-made. “Social scientists and your models and scientists? 喂?
“I know the natural scientists will tell you that they do practical things. 他们做的事情。 但在2016年，地球上十分之一的人缺乏饮用水。 九分之一的人营养不良或挨饿。 我们很浪费。 我们生活在科技超载的时代。 世界上的手机比正在运行的厕所还多。 所有这些实用的东西都有其反面。 In the immortal words of Jurassic Park, ‘Scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.’ We have stockpiles of bombs to exterminate life many times over. 实用? 那还用说。 在我长大的苏联，我们没有辩论。 我们甚至不应该有意见。 但是硬科学呢？ 是的，我们在这些方面很强大。 文明在哪里？ Bye-bye.”
Lockwood related science to students’ everyday life, asking several about their early-morning routines. One – who sounded suspiciously like a “plant” – said he read the news on his phone.
“Your phone is key, your computer is key, to letting you read news,” Lockwood said. “A lot of where we get our information actually comes from science. We put the cellphones together, the circuits, all that good stuff.”
She wasn’t through.
The water from their showers gets treated “using a whole slew of chemicals and physical scientific processes ... 热水淋浴吗? 它们涉及物理和化学。 If you think about it, hot showers are really brought to you by ...”
“Science,” shouted her acolytes.
Lockwood: “Telephones are brought to you by ...”
“Science,” they screamed.
The bread for Lyra’s ham sandwich: “The grain, wheat, was developed by scientists, agriculturists,” Lockwood said.
“What keeps you on a roller-coaster [at Busch Gardens] as you’re twisting around? 你的大多数旋转游乐设施，大多数过山车，所有这些，都是由…… “
“Science!” they shrieked.
福尔摩斯承认，在之前的14次木筏辩论中，社会科学只赢得了两次，他尝试了一点心理学，试图让自己看起来像是在认输，他拿出一把草坪椅，带着伞喝饮料，说他还是在岛上舒服点吧。
But then he opened a newspaper and began reading “headlines”: The 30th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan and former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev negotiating to end of the Cold War, “one of the success stories of social sciences,” he said.
“War is at an all-time low. 原来我们今天生活的这段时间是非常和平的； less people are dying on the battlefield than ever before,” he continued. “In international development, the World Bank is credited with the lowest number of people living in poverty ever, so the role of social scientists is strong in international development.
“So it could be that I have something to say about the role of social science,” Holmes said, “and that it’s not as useless as one thinks.”
It was a nice try, but few were buying what Prokhorova jokingly called “a humongous bunch of baloney.”
“My opponents might say that humanities don’t teach transferable skills,” she continued. “Ugh, yeah. 人文学科确实教授技能，最重要的是语言、文化能力和细读，透过表面看东西。
“Which brings me to Edward Snowden. He’s a smart man, a computer scientist – with zero cultural understanding. 在世界上所有的国家中，在他反对政府滥用职权的运动中，他选择了俄罗斯。 Don’t let this happen to you. Save the humanities, please.”
几分钟后，普罗霍洛娃独享了木筏。