The numbers paint a picture of a complete rout; before the debate, for the motion: 678. Against: 1102. Don’t know: 346. After the debate: For: 268. Against: 1,876. Don’t know: 34. In other words, after hearing the speakers, the number of people in the audience who opposed the motion increased by 774.
This debate was run by an organisation called Intelligence Squared, I have tickets to see Richard Dawkins debate against the ex-Bishop of Oxford at the end of November which is run by the same people, I'm looking forward to it even more now.
Not that long ago there was an article in that Economist-offshoot magazine "Intelligent Life" (or something like that) where they listed a bunch of places like Intelligence Squared, meaning places where there are debates that are meant to be sort of semi-scholarly.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I can't remember any of the others - Steve, do you by chance remember seeing any other places like that.
Lisa, I didn't catch that list although the ones I look out for are,
ReplyDeleteHumanist Association
Oxford Union
Beyond Belief (more of a conference)
TED (more like lectures)
Hay literary festival
FreedomFest (sometimes)
Royal Institute
That magazine has a WEB site I discovered, it's at www.moreintelligentlife.com
PS. Can you make it to the Dawkins one in November?
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteSorry, I just remembered I had asked a question - I'm pretty bad about following up on comments.
I will look those places up. And go see if I can dig up the original list on that webby. Thx.
Are there still tix for the Dawkins thing? You know since atheism is the new trendy thing all the riff-raff are joining up and it's hard to get tickets to these things. :-)
Lisa, yes you could be right about that, perhaps it's time for a reformation of Atheism ;)
ReplyDeleteDon't know about tickets; I got mine from the Wellington College web site.