I don't know how many times I've heard from skeptics that Dr. William Lane Craig wins his debates because he "Gish-Gallops". That is, that he takes on the technique of recently passed biochemist and YEC advocate Duane Gish, and throws out as much misinformation as possible to confound his opponents in a strange debate tactic that leaves his debate partners in a tizzy by information overload. It's such a well known accusation thrown at Dr. Craig that he is prominently mentioned on the "rational wiki" as one of the "Abusers of this technique"
Watching some of Dr. Craig's older videos I was fascinated by how consistent he's been in the last 20-25 years. He has pretty much repeated the exact same talking points throughout his career. Practically verbatim. There is almost no excuse whatsoever to lay this fallacy of Gish-Gallop on Dr. Craig. None at all. All one would need to do to debate Dr. Craig effectively is watch any number of his debates and counter those arguments that he routinely uses over the course of 2 and a half decades. In fact, as I understand it, finally one debate opponent did just that in Kevin Scharp,. Upon a miscommunication with the Veritas Forum, Dr. Craig assumed he was going to get into a laid back, conversational debate. He was not at all expecting Scharp to do his homework, but found to his surprise that professor Scharp actually did research on all of his online debates and posed a formidable opponent. Fascinating stuff.
For the benefit of those who assume that Dr. Craig is still guilty of this fallacy, I present two videos. This thread isn't to debate the topics he brings up, but to simply put to rest that Dr. Craig throws out too much information for his opponents to counter. Clearly, if the same debate opponent throws out the same 6 or so arguments over almost 30 years, no matter the debate, he cannot reasonably be accused of "Gish-Galloping". That's all I intend to prove here. Say what you want about his methods, but he is not guilty of this one particular fallacy.
Debate against Frank Zindler 1993.
Debate against Lewis Wolpert 2007
Watching some of Dr. Craig's older videos I was fascinated by how consistent he's been in the last 20-25 years. He has pretty much repeated the exact same talking points throughout his career. Practically verbatim. There is almost no excuse whatsoever to lay this fallacy of Gish-Gallop on Dr. Craig. None at all. All one would need to do to debate Dr. Craig effectively is watch any number of his debates and counter those arguments that he routinely uses over the course of 2 and a half decades. In fact, as I understand it, finally one debate opponent did just that in Kevin Scharp,. Upon a miscommunication with the Veritas Forum, Dr. Craig assumed he was going to get into a laid back, conversational debate. He was not at all expecting Scharp to do his homework, but found to his surprise that professor Scharp actually did research on all of his online debates and posed a formidable opponent. Fascinating stuff.
For the benefit of those who assume that Dr. Craig is still guilty of this fallacy, I present two videos. This thread isn't to debate the topics he brings up, but to simply put to rest that Dr. Craig throws out too much information for his opponents to counter. Clearly, if the same debate opponent throws out the same 6 or so arguments over almost 30 years, no matter the debate, he cannot reasonably be accused of "Gish-Galloping". That's all I intend to prove here. Say what you want about his methods, but he is not guilty of this one particular fallacy.
Debate against Frank Zindler 1993.
Debate against Lewis Wolpert 2007
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