The debate Richard Dawkins chose to forget
by Shmuley Boteach
Jerusalem Post (Israel), page 14
April 14, 2008
A friend recently called my attention to the official Web site of Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous atheist, where, as a way of assailing me, he denied having ever debated me. “Boteach organized debates, with himself as chairman, and I sometimes took part in debates with the outside visitors that he imported, for example Robert Winston. Boteach was a surprisingly impartial chairman, but he was always just a chairman, never a debater in any of the debates that I attended.”
That is a particularly bold untruth. Our debate, which took place at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford on October 23, 1996, attracted hundreds of students and featured, on the atheist side, Prof. Dawkins and chemistry Prof. Peter Atkins, and on the religion side, me and Prof. Keith Ward, Oxford’s Regius Professor of Divinity. Student president Josh Wine was in the chair. In a vote at the end of the debate as to how many students had changed their minds after hearing the arguments, Dawkin’s side was defeated and religion prevailed, which might account for his selective memory. (The full footage of the two-hour debate is available on my Web site via IAmplify.)
