Why do we assume that a political debate is a good platform to determine who is the best candidate for president, or to get to the truth about an emotionally charged issue?

I’m thinking about debates for a couple of reasons: 2024 Republican presidential candidates will get their chance together on a national podium on August 23, when their first debate is scheduled in Milwaukee. Also, who hasn’t been bombarded with stories about the desire of mega-underdog Democratic nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

anti vax

Conspiracy theories with a well-known immunologist?

When it comes to political candidates, debates can be an opportunity to show their personality, their understanding of the issues and whether they have good thinking skills. They can also reveal deadly flaws and occasionally serve as graveyards for political careers. For example, in the 2016 debates, Jeb Bush couldn’t overcome then-candidate Donald Trump’s characterization of him as lacking in energy.

And it almost pains me to remember the former governor of Texas. Rick Perry’s famous oops during a 2011 Republican presidential debate when he forgot the third of three federal departments he promised to eliminate. (Energy.)

For voters, most of whom will never see a candidate in person, broadcast debates provide a chance to gauge the man or woman who is asking for their vote. Not that it always makes a difference. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was widely believed to have won all of her debates against Donald Trump. We see how that worked out.

Debates are not a good forum for helping us separate fact from fiction. Two candidates in the 2024 cycle, former President Trump, a Republican, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a putative Democrat, are essentially non-negotiable. Not because either is such a skilled orator or has an exceptional command of the facts, quite the contrary, in fact, but because both are masters of the rhetorical technique called the Gish canter.

Gish’s gallop is the debate equivalent of Phil Spector’s wall of sound, but instead of

which is produced

musical instruments, it is achieved with lies, half-truths and obfuscation.

“stingy gallop”

was created by Eugenie Scott, a biologist and former anthropology professor who founded the National Center for Science Education in 1981 to ensure that evolution, not creationism, is taught in schools.

(If you think that issue has been resolved, think again. Our ultra-conservative Supreme Court has been steadily breaking down the separation of church and state. Scott believes that the promoters of creationism and intelligent design, who have been silent for so long, are only now bide their time to bring the right case to court.)

Scott, who lives in Berkeley, has probably spent more of her career than she would have liked to expose creationists, including the late Duane Gish, who founded the Institute for Creation Research to expose the science of evolution. Galloping gish, said Scott, who coined the phrase in 1994, is when you spew out a bunch of information, accurate or not, that your opponent can’t refute in the time available… It’s an effective, if ultimately superficial and misleading debate trick .”

The technique is also favored by anti-vaxxers like RFK Jr. and inveterate liars like former President Trump. (Which, to be fair, probably don’t even consciously do.)

You can be sure that this phenomenon will be seen when Trump deigns to take the stage at the first Republican presidential debate. It’s hard to imagine a narcissist like him forgetting the spotlight, but his presence is hardly guaranteed. After all, he walks around 30

percentage

points ahead of its nearest rival, the desperately unlikely Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as the candidates, must pledge to support the party’s final nominee. Unity is not Trump’s forte.

In any case, the idea that serious political arguments can be resolved, or conspiracy theories aimed at subverting scientific reality can be debunked over the course of 60 or 90 minute encounters between opponents, is ludicrous.

Debating is a sport, Scott said. It is not a way of informing the public or the public about the correctness of an opinion. It is played by rules that differ from those of logic and empirical evidence. Debates, she once wrote, are drive-by shootings when it comes to critical thinking.

Last month, a flurry of attention was paid to pediatrician and immunologist Peter Hotez’s famous refusal to discuss vaccine safety

Kennedy.

Podcaster Joe Rogan he of the Hey, I’m just raise questions school of vaccine sofistry came up with the idea for a debate between the pair last month after a lengthy interview with Kennedy. Rogan offered $100,000 to donate to the charity of Hotez’s choice for the spectacle. Elon Musk, the eternal high school student who recently challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a penis measurement contest, tweeted that Hotez was afraid of public debate, because he knew he was wrong.

As my colleague Michael Hiltzik wrote, Hotez was smart to turn down Kennedy.

Debating a conspirator is a one-way ticket to rhetoric hell, as evidenced by the mournful essays written by some who took the bait to directly oppose Kennedy and ended up bruised by his lightning-fast barrage of nonsense.

You can come armed with all the facts in the world, but when you’re dealing with a conspirator, there’s no real way to win an argument, New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote of a pointless debate he had in 2006. had with Kennedy, who claimed, baselessly, that the 2004 presidential election was stolen from John

F

Kerry.

For people whose views are not anchored to facts

,”

manjoo said,

“Winning is just getting attention. And if you publicly argue with someone like Kennedy, you’ve already lost.

Precisely.

I mean, really, how would anyone debate someone like Kennedy, who just last week claimed that the COVID-19 virus

What

possibly “targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese?

Unfortunately, a simple but true statement, You are ridiculous and crazy, will hardly change the hearts and minds of Kennedy’s fellow conspiracy-minded anti-vax fans.

Maybe it’s time to fight fire with fire.

On Monday, Scott told me about a debate she had witnessed years ago, where cell biologist Kenneth Miller of Brown University, a deft debater

who was well aware of the Gish gallop, turned the tables on Gish and threw out all these reasons why creationism was not scientifically supported, boom, boom, boom.

In an email this week, Miller recalled the scene: “Gish then loudly complained to the (creationist!) moderator that this was unfair and demanded more time to respond. However, the moderator stood his ground and refused. Gish at the time, got up angrily and nearly knocked over the table in front of him.”

@robinkabcarian