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
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.

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