[ChikkaChiChi]

'Winning an argument' is a magic bullet that doesn't exist. Otherwise it would be called 'teaching'

I'm not trying to change the person's mind when I enter into a debate, I'm trying to plant a seed of empathy for them to see things from another perspective so that their own brain begins to work against their existing bias.

I also tend to be one of those crazy people that believe their are a lot of grey areas when science isn't involved.

[tomjen3]

There are two issues that I can see with that style of debate: you assume that the other doesn't have empathy for your point of view and that he would agree with you if he had.

You leave out the possibility that you were wrong.