Have you ever been Gish-Galloped? On March 20, 1982, in Tampa, Florida, Dr. Kenneth Miller definitely was.<\/p>\n
But first, let\u2019s clear something up: Gish Gallop is not a new horse\u2019s gait or a qualification event for Royal Ascot. The term was coined by scientist and science advocate Eugenie Scott. It describes a rhetorical strategy where someone overwhelms their opponent with a rapid-fire barrage of half-truths, misrepresentations or outright falsehoods, making it nearly impossible to respond to each one individually.<\/p>\n
Back in Tampa, creationist Duane Gish used exactly this approach to debate biologist Kenneth Miller. It\u2019s from him that the Gish Gallop gets its name.<\/p>\n
To me, being Gish-Galloped feels like being hit by a giant wave. Overwhelming and relentless. A pro surfer once told me: \u201cYou gotta stay loose, not locked. If you go stiff, the wave owns you. Adjust quick, don\u2019t flinch. The wave won\u2019t wait. It shifts, you shift. And most of all, see the line, not the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n
To me, those words mean more than just surfing advice. If you’re calm in a debate, you stay in control. You don\u2019t bite at every provocation, you don\u2019t interrupt to prove a point and you don\u2019t throw sarcasm around just to feel smart. That backfires. Calm means you\u2019re clear, steady, and ready to move when it matters.<\/p>\n
One might think facts would easily dismantle a Gish Galloper. But they won\u2019t. Unfortunatelly. Not only does it take 10 seconds to say something misleading and 10 minutes to explain why it\u2019s wrong. Humans simply don\u2019t respond to logic alone. We\u2019re wired for emotion.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re familiar with presentation skills, you\u2019ve most probably heard that facts tell and stories sell. Let me add a third line: Facts tell, Stories sell, Emotions move.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean abandoning reason. It\u2019s about wrapping your facts in emotional resonance. Let\u2019s call it \u2018Rational Passion\u2019.<\/p>\n
When you, like the surfing professional, stay calm, grounded and emotionally present, you communicate both with competence and compassion. And that\u2019s powerful.<\/p>\n
Warm regards,
Ralph Hubacher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever been Gish-Galloped? On March 20, 1982, in Tampa, Florida, Dr. Kenneth Miller definitely was. But first, let\u2019s clear something up: Gish Gallop is not a new horse\u2019s gait or a qualification event for Royal Ascot. The term was coined by scientist and science advocate Eugenie Scott. It describes a rhetorical strategy where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-unkategorisiert"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5529,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5528\/revisions\/5529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}