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Critical Thinking Bootcamp: The Gish Gallop & Brandolini's Law [1]
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Date: 2023-05-12
Hello again, friends! Time for another Bootcamp entry! This time, I wanted to visit a tool often used by various science denialists, pseudoscience proponents, and general hucksters (evolution deniers, climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, you name it). It seems particularly relevant given the recent Trump Town Hall event on CNN. Let’s take a look a look at: The Gish Gallop.
The term Gish Gallop was coined in 1994, when anthropologist Eugenie Scott noted that Creationist Duane Gish frequently used this tactic during debates about evolution.
The Gish Gallop is a tactic in which one side simply tries to overwhelm an opponent by throwing as many different arguments out there as they can, counting on their opponent being unable to counter them all — and thus allowing them to claim victory because their opponent failed to address every single one of their arguments.
And this is done without regard for accuracy or logic of the arguments being presented. In fact, Gish Gallopers will often fail to provide sources or obscure their sources to make it harder for their opponent to rebut them.
You might also call this tactic “flooding the zone.”
Blast out a dozen nonsensical points, and if you’re opponent only has time to rebut ten of them, claim victory because they didn’t have the time or energy to cover those last two.
Which brings me to Brandolini’s Law (aka “The Bullshit Asymmetry Principle”): “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”
The Gish Galloper can firehose out a stream of consciousness of complete nonsense, but it takes the opponent, who is presumably bound by some degree of honesty and integrity, far more time and energy to refute those points.
Take a minute to think back to CNN’s little Trump town hall event. Trump can fire out the falsehoods far, far faster than fact checkers can fact check. If you’re not bound by a respect for truth and accuracy and are simply focused on getting the desired results. it doesn’t matter if what you say is true. In fact, making up stuff on the fly is quick and effective if you have a receptive audience and you know how to work them.
But pity the poor fact checker that then has to try to check the accuracy of statements that are often vague, contradictory, or just flat out made up. It takes time and effort, and by then, the Gish Galloper is long gone onto other falsehoods and misrepresentations.
Not to be discouraging, but maybe I should also mention Hartley’s Corollary to Brandolini’s Law: “Brandolini was an optimist.”
Gish Gallopers abound, and sadly, those of us bound to reveal the truth of the world must suffer under the yoke of Brandolini’s Law, knowing that yes, it takes more work to debunk falsehoods than it does to create them (remember the old adage that “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots”), but then we have to remember that in the end we’re Fighting the Good Fight.
It’s a fight that never ends. Until next time, folks!
Prior Bootcamp Installments
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp:
The Strawman
The Slippery Slope
Begging the Question
Poisoning the Well
No True Scotsman!
Ad Hominem
False Dilemma
Non Sequitur
Red Herring
Gamblers Fallacy
Bandwagon Fallacy
Appeal to Fear
The Fallacy Fallacy
Appeal to Personal Incredulity
Appeal to Authority
Special Pleading
Texas Sharpshooter
Post Hoc
Appeal to Nature
Furtive Fallacy
Alphabet Soup
Middle Ground
Relative Privation
Cognitive Bias Bootcamp:
Bystander Effect
Curse of Knowledge
Barnum Effect
Declinism
In-Group Bias
Hindsight Bias
Survivor Bias
Rhyme-as-Reason Effect
Apophenia (& Paradoleia)
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Confirmation Bias
Anchoring Bias
Inattentional Blindness
The Frequency Illusion (AKA the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon)
G.I. Joe Fallacy
Critical Thinking Bootcamp:
Sea Lioning
Occam’s Razor
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