re: #94 Charles Johnson

That “debate” reminds me why so many scientists absolutely refuse to get drawn into “debates” with creationists. They’ve rehearsed an amazing number of deceptive and false talking points that they can just retch out in one long uninterrupted projectile vomit stream. It’s pointless and foolish to lend them the credibility of pretending to debate, and give them a chance to confuse another audience.

But these gish-galloping goons still get to spew their talking points in other venues (*cough* Fox *cough*), and they need to be rebutted at some point lest they gain traction through the sheer force of repetition (i.e. the old “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” trick)

Ideally, there needs to be a strategy to preempt these lies before they even start, or shut down them down when they try to pick up momentum. I think I heard it said that Joe Biden in the VP debate shot down the gish gallop method before Ryan could get it going - do you think scientists and others could learn from that?