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Metaphysical Materialism1248

How do I counter the gish gallop in a typed debate?

The Gish Gallop is a debating technique that a person will make a large number of claims without supporting the claims with anything. The format I use is debate.org and problem I have with gish gallopers is that there is a max character count. I can not avoid debating those opponents sometimes and I can not just make the debate topic any narrower because that will be seen as moving the goalposts.
asked on Monday, Mar 30, 2015 02:41:52 AM by Metaphysical Materialism1248

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Answers

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Bo Bennett, PhD
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Simply calling attention to the technique should be sufficient. For example, "You have listed a number of arguments, all of which deserve to be addressed. However, let's take one at a time." A more assertive response might be "You have made many unsupported claims, all of which have been debunked ad nauseaum ." You can continue with "I would be glad to debunk them all for you here, but this would be outside the scope of this debate." or "Let's take them one at a time."

Another technique is to simply provide a link to place where someone else responded to the claim. For example:

Person 1: The earth is flat. Pigs fly. Elvis is still alive.
Person 2:
"The earth is flat." - No, it's not: nasa.gov...
"Pigs fly" - No, they don't: pigsdontfly.com...
"Elvis is still alive" - No, he's not: elvisiswormfood.com...

The important part is to project confidence that these claims being made are without merit (if, in fact they are).
answered on Monday, Mar 30, 2015 07:41:48 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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