Of course, as we all know, the Gish Gallop rears its ugly head outside of formal debate, too. It can be hard to counteract all the false facts we're subjected to every day. But there are ways.
According to Quartz's Carl Alviani, it helps to reframe the argument by focusing in on the most outlandish and difficult-to-debunk lie in the list. You can also change the ground rules, says Alviani. "Just as in a debate, where we have the option of limiting the number of points a speaker can make, we can create online formats designed to discourage Galloping. For example, the rising prevalence of real-time fact-checking is an encouraging step in this direction."
But fact checking only has power if audiences pay attention to it. That's where you come in. If you read or hear something that doesn't sound right, check up on it. Find multiple sources that attribute their information and don't publish under names like "American Truth Today" or "Freedom Militia News Network" or "TucsonRattlerProteinPowderAndPoliticalOpinion.com." If it's wrong, tell your friends. Misinformation is easy to spread, but with some hard work, the truth can come out.
Bardfinn on August 26th, 2017 at 22:13 UTC »
They're not lies per se, they're at minimum appealing-yet-misleading statements.
Completely Hypothetical Fictional Example: "This famous biologist didn't believe the platypus is a mammal, and I agree with him!"
— famous biologist referred to, died in 1895, made his statement in 1893, retired in 1884, likely suffered from dementia. No modern biologist since 1975 has argued against the classification.
Actual example: "If Men descended from Apes, why do we still have Chimpanzees?"
One paragraph on That's Not How Evolution Works; One paragraph on Ecological Niches and Fitness; One paragraph on Sexual Reproduction; One paragraph on Trait Heritability; One paragraph on Morphological Evidence and how it was overwhelmingly confirmed by Genetic Evidence once DNA was discovered and sequenced.
Actual example: "If so many Jews died in the gas chambers in concentration camps, why don't we have evidence of cyanide in the chambers today?"
One paragraph on why Cyanide is toxic to humans; one paragraph on how oxygen makes it volatile and soluble in water; one paragraph on how the chambers have been affected by other actions over the decades; one paragraph on how all of this is settled and documented and freely available and has not had any viable academic challenges for fifty years.
Zebid on August 26th, 2017 at 22:06 UTC »
That's when you counter with the Vincent Gambini rebuttal.
Noctudeit on August 26th, 2017 at 22:06 UTC »
Modern debate is a disaster. It's like they took the sport of fencing and gave both opponents machine guns.