Huxley Memorial Debate

The Huxley Memorial Debate took place on February 14, 1986 under the auspices of the Oxford Union, a student debating club of Oxford University.The motion was "That the Doctrine of Creation is more valid than the Theory of Evolution". Speaking for the ayes were young earth creationists Edgar Andrews (a physicist, then President of the Biblical Creation Society) and Professor A. E. Wilder-Smith (a chemist). Speaking in opposition to the motion were evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Professor John Maynard Smith. A few members of the Oxford Union were additional speakers.After approximately 3 hours of debate, the motion was defeated by 198 to 115 votes [Critical-Historical Perspective on the Argument about Evolution and Creation, John Durant, in "From Evolution to Creation:A European Perspective (Eds. Sven Anderson, Arthus Peacocke), Aarhus Univ. Press, Aarhus, Denmark] .

Debate

The debate is named after the historic 1860 Oxford evolution debate on June 30 1860 when Samuel Wilberforce, then Lord Bishop of Oxford, opposed Thomas Henry Huxley, ("Darwin's bulldog") during a session of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in Oxford. The debate centered on the validity of Darwin's ideas as proposed in the "Origin of Species". The debate is available in mp3 format and can be downloaded from the Richard Dawkins website. [ [http://richarddawkins.net/article,721,1986-Oxford-Union-Debate,Richard-Dawkins-John-Maynard-Smith Oxford Union Debate on Richard Dawkins Web] ]

John Durant writes that "after due consideration, it [the Oxford Union] came down cautiously on Huxley's side" [Critical-Historical Perspective on the Argument about Evolution and Creation, John Durant, in "From Evolution to Creation:A European Perspective (Eds. Sven Anderson, Arthus Peacocke), Aarhus Univ. Press, Aarhus, Denmark] . A. E. Wilder-Smith said in his book "Fulfilled Journey" that was written twelve years after the event that "In the end the creationists won some 114 of the votes from the voting public of about 300--which was quite surprising, as the Oxford Union represented the materialistic naturalistic evolutionary viewpoint of biogenesis." [Arthur Ernest, Beate Wilder-Smith, A.E. Wilder-Smith, "Fulfilled Journey". Word for Today (1998), ISBN 0936728752 page?] A report on the website of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) by John Durant falsely lists 198 votes for the noes and 15 for the ayes. [ [http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/03_Areas/evolution/perspectives/Durant.shtml AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion. Thematic Areas: Evolution: Perspectives] ] [ the format for '15' is not the number fifteen, but lower case 'l', space, and the numeral five.]

References

External links

* [http://richarddawkins.net/article,721,1986-Oxford-Union-Debate,Richard-Dawkins-John-Maynard-Smith Downloadable audio of Oxford Union Debate] from Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
* [http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/03_Areas/evolution/perspectives/Durant.shtml A Critical-Historical Perspective on the Argument about Evolution and Creation] by John Durant