The best Gish Gallopers are the ones who keep getting invited back onto the shows. It is a marvelous way to fill precious air time with the nitrous oxide of nonsense that comes from a bunch of people shouting lies simultaneously at the top of their voices.
#Gish gallop full#
Turn on your television right now, and odds are better than good that you’ll be confronted with a screen full of commentators Galloping at each other with all their might. Nowhere is the tactic more evidently used than within the confines of the corporate “news” media. A prepared opponent can handle the barrage, often dismantling many points at once by undermining a single false premise. Notably, the tactic did not fare nearly so well in their second meeting. He didn’t lose he got Gish Galloped off the stage. Deploying a rapid-fire fusillade of half-truths and outright falsehoods, he left his overwhelmed opponent stammering through replies. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney used it to great effect during his first debate against then-President Obama in October of 2012. Scott coined the term “Gish Gallop” after being on the receiving end of the tactic numerous times, and it stuck.Įxamples of the Gish Gallop can be found all over the political and media landscape today. Eugenie Scott, anthropologist and director of the National Center for Science Education, was a frequent debate opponent of Gish. Like as not, they are overwhelmed, and the spreader emerges victorious while seeming to be a master of voluminous data. Nearly every point delivered is either partially or completely false, but the opponent faces a daunting task when confronted with so many issues to refute at once. Gish’s chief tactic, known in debate terminology as “spreading,” was to fire off as many points as possible in a short span of time. His favorite activity in the world involved squaring off in public debates against advocates of evolution within the scientific community. Enter the late Duane Tolbert Gish, neuroscientist and hardcore creationist who, at the time of his death in 2013, held the position of senior vice president emeritus at the Institute for Creation Research. Imagine being such a consummate bullshit artist that you have an entire debate tactic named after you.