Science, evolution, debate

Last week my friends Clare and Roger took me to a debate between these folks and Michael Schermer. Listening to the logical contortions the Reasons to Believe folks went through to try to explain their case was physically painful. It was like watching someone try to explain a geocentric universe. They threw in a little crappy math and some very fuzzy bible references to try to complete the snow job. Schermer for the most part was straight forward, simple, and consistent. He had a few moments of smugness and grandstanding, and he tried to connect some disparate ideas which just don't belong in the same bucket. But he just made more sense.
Don't get me wrong, I respect folks with faith- my wife's Catholic, and I have friends who are Mormons, Jews, Anglicans etc. But subverting the bible and using junk science to try to deny evolution is deplorable. Questioning is good- especially questioning scientific data. Making up crap and passing it off as truth, not so much.
I used to believe that having the right facts was all that mattered. If you're right, you're just right and the debate should end. For things that can't be proven I don't see a lot of reason for debate- speculating over a beer and a camp fire maybe, but there aren't any concrete points to argue. But it seems that there are lot of folks who just believe what they want to believe about the universe and people. There are a lot of methods of argument that don't rely on truth- they just bulldoze their way through and beat you into submission by repetition, confusion, volume, anger, or plain wearing you down. The funny thing is, if you have to use any of those to make your point it almost seems like an implicit admission that you're wrong, or that your audience isn't listening.