We discussed some of the scientific problems involved with the Young Earth creationism theory last week. But back in the theory's heyday there was a debate technique creationists used, affectionately named after creationist apologist Duane Gish. It was called the Gish Gallop:
Although it is a trivial amount of effort on the Galloper's part to make each point (particularly if they reuse an existing list of arguments), a refutation may take much longer, require significantly more effort. This is especially true in that the Galloper need only win a single argument for them to claim victory — while the refuter must achieve a 100% success ratio. Thus, Galloping is frequently used in timed debates to overwhelm opponents.
My favorite example comes not from Gish himself but from a creationist evangelist named Kent Hovind, a renowned carnival barker who would throw up so many distortions riddled with so many errors that a single one would take long detours into various fields of science to correct. A stellar example is his purported conversation with an initially skeptical professor.
In this imaginary conversation, Hovind convinced the imaginary professor to accept Young Earth Creationism because (paraphrasing), “if all the matter and energy in the universe came from a tiny spinning dot like atheist scientists say, then by the conservation of angular momentum, everything would be spinning in the same direction. Since the planets Uranus and Venus spin retrograde, the Big Bang violates this sacred principle and therefore evolution is impossible.” If you are properly informed in all the fields of science involved there, you can appreciate what it would take to unpack that nonsense.
It seems Donald Trump may have unwittingly (or wittingly, for all we know) hit on the same tactic. Let’s look at a few laughable examples.
That Trump casually lies at the podium almost as often as he breathes is a well-documented claim leveled at him by traditional and new media alike. But actually unpacking all those lies in one cable news segment, in the confines of a debate, or in a single online post is a Herculean task. Take a look at this Huffington Post piece, which does a fabulous job of listing a few of the whoppers in Trump’s convention speech and summarizing the corrections—just as an example:
Trump said after Clinton’s four years as secretary of state, “Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons.” But Iran was already on a path to acquiring nuclear weapons. At issue is whether the nuclear deal will prevent Iran, as intended, from becoming a nuclear power.
What follows in the article is several meaty grafs on Iran’s actual history in pursuing nukes, spanning several White House administrations. This led to the Iranian nuclear agreement last year, and why it’s arguably in the world’s interests. But to hear Trump tell it, it all happened under Obama/Clinton through sheer negligence, and we even paid Iran billions of dollars in bribe money to sign the deal! The nod-nod wink-wink conspiratorial implication is that Clinton and Obama are in cahoots with Iran. HuffPo did a fine job reviewing all that in a concise manner, but it would be difficult to squeeze it all into a debate or a soundbite, even for someone who is well prepared. Throw in a dozen more similar convoluted whoppers, and the constraints of cable news or a debate format would make correcting even a fraction of them impossible.
My old friend Ed Brayton, who is as talented and tireless at wading through this crap as any blogger around, found he had to extend the fisking over several posts—and laments his work may never be done:
[T]he moment Donald Trump takes office all violence will stop! As for a “moment of crisis,” crime is at an all-time low and has been dropping steadily for 25 years now. That includes violence against police officers ... This is classic demagoguery, pointing to a few recent images on television that have people scared and pretending that it represents a greater reality. It doesn’t. Americans have never been safer from violent crime than they are today ...
“I will present the facts plainly and honestly.” — Trump
I hope no one was drinking anything when he said that. Avoiding a classic spittake would have been impossible. If Donald Trump presented the facts about anything honestly, it would be for the very first time.
Trump’s standard stump speech, especially in the wake of a mass shooting, almost always includes the fearful claim that Clinton/Obama are letting in gazillions of Muslims that we know absolutely nothing about but who are obviously intent on murdering Americans. How best to address that?
A knowledgeable person could easily get bogged down in the actual details of how people fleeing the carnage of civil war are vetted through an exhaustive process before being admitted to the U.S. Or they could point out the fact that the San Bernadino and Orlando shooters were born in the U.S., not recently admitted through a refugee program. Then again, another good point to make would be that providing safe haven to refugees is one of the many things that makes the receiving nation look merciful and wise to the rest of the world—especially in contrast to the intolerant, authoritarian organizations they are fleeing. But correcting a lie with appeals to facts and reasonable inference takes a lot more time than telling a lie that hits listeners in the gut.
Lastly, consider Trump’s convention claim that he alone will be able to protect LGBT Americans from the savagery they would face under an Islamic theocracy. If ever there was a national eye-roll moment, that was it. Never mind that the U.S. is in no danger whatsoever from being taken over by Islamic theocrats. And ignore that the most immediate and credible threat by far to the LGBT community—and women and minorities—comes from home-grown Christian reconstructionists much more at home in the GOP than anywhere else. Put aside that some of these religious fundamentalists revel in the notion of executing LGBT people in various barbaric ways for divine reasons that cannot be questioned.
The Gish Gallop is an effective debating technique when used in front of laypeople who don’t know the facts, or believers who simply don’t care. Trump is not the first politician to use it effectively, and he probably won’t be the last. But Trump has elevated rapid-fire lying to angry mobs to heights not seen in presidential politics since the days of George Wallace.
Just since the first draft of this article midweek, Trump has encouraged Putin to hack democratic servers, then downplayed it saying he was kidding, moved on to dissing the Khan’s, and either revealed a secret base in Saudi Arabia, or more likely, simply made one up. And that’s just the major items over the last few days.
Most journalists do value accuracy and there are a number of resources for untangling the lies and setting the record straight. But it remains to be seen if Trump’s bullshit can be successfully countered for the benefit of the undecided voters who will make the difference in this election.