Dawkins defeated in debate?

[Brian37]

http://www.examiner.com/article/atheist-...r-religion

[Napoléon]

Never read such a biased article in my life.

[Brian37]

Well it is typical. Lie when you have no evidence.

[Tiberius]

1) Technically speaking, Dawkins was defeated. He gained 138 votes versus his opponent's 324.

2) His opponent, Dr Rowan Williams, isn't just another idiot creationist. He's a smart guy; it wouldn't surprise me if he trounced Dawkins on a few points.

3) Being defeated in a debate isn't the end of the world. It's a debate; it's a measure of how good you are at convincing the crowd of your position. It's also usually a highly biased proceedings; we have no idea who the people in the crowd were...if a large number were from religious organizations, then you won't expect them to vote for the anti-religion motion. The better way of "scoring" a debate is to take a vote at the beginning and then one again at the end, and comparing the votes. That way you can see who gained / lost votes with their arguments.

[Something completely different]

Who cares?

We are all going to die anyway.

[Autumnlicious]

Argue on a slippery topic, expect to lose some.

No one is perfect.

There are a variety of tactics one can use in a debate that objectively do little to confront an argument and instead attempt to sway the audience.

For example, I'd like to point out the Gish Gallop fallacy often wins audience approval despite having little to no bearing on a fully evaluated position - it merely places a temporary roadblock of statements that must be evaluated exhaustively. A cheap tactic to make one look big while wasting the other's time and resources.

That in mind, is it any surprise that anyone else can lose even if they're logically correct?

Humans aren't strict parsers for the most part. Simple things often are more readily accepted.

It is also the reason why I perceive many people as low grade morons - almost every topic has so many perspectives and positions that I can't stand to deny exist,

Doesn't mean I subscribe to them though.

Win some, lose some.

Hopefully Dawkins learned from this event

[CapnAwesome]

I don't think that Dawkins is a particularly brilliant debater, but when you judge a debate that isn't the way that you measure it anyway. You have to take percentages both before and after. Normally peoples minds change very little from watching a single debate. In that article it says nothing about what percentage of people agreed beforehand, so the number itself is fairly worthless.

[Baalzebutt]

Atheist preachers? Dawkins a creationist?

What a pile of bullshit. The spin doctors strike again!