Rather than being a formal debate between the two, it was actually an animated discussion that occurred after the presentation of a paper by John William Draper of New York University, on the intellectual development of Europe with relation to Darwin's theory (one of a number of scientific papers presented during the week as part of the British Association's annual meeting).[5] Although Huxley and Wilberforce were not the only participants in the discussion, they were reported to be the two dominant parties.[5] No verbatim account of the debate exists.[2] There is considerable uncertainty regarding what Huxley and Wilberforce actually said,[3][4][7] and subsequent accounts were subject to distortion.[8]