Overwhelming an opponent with many weak claims, since refuting each costs more time than making it.
Named by Eugenie Scott for the creationist Duane Gish. It is Brandolini's law weaponised as a format: the asymmetry is exploited deliberately rather than merely suffered.
In practice
- A consultation response listing forty objections forces a fifty-page reply, and thirty-eight of the objections were never serious.
- A witness answers a question with eleven claims, and the cross-examination has time for two.
- Standing
- The tactical application of Brandolini's law.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- The catalogue of predictable errors