I don’t see this as a Gish Gallop, as it doesn’t even appear to me to be an argument. It just looks like a list of biases that reductionists should take extra care to avoid. The “should” part wasn’t argued, just assumed.
“Reductionists should avoid these biases” implies that reductionists have those biases to a significant degree, and that when examples are given they are examples of these biases. This post contains at least 33 separate items implying that reductionists are often biased in some particular way, plus all the specific examples that are brought up. Nobody could possibly answer them all.
Why would you “answer” them? This is not a “reductionism is bad” argument, and I would find it oddly religious if you felt the need to insist that reductionism was unique among all methodologies in not imposing a bias.
Conversational implicature suggests that when you give a list of 33 ways in which reductionists can be biased, you are claiming that reductionists are exceptionally biased. It is logically possible that you are merely saying they are biased like everyone else, but actual human communication doesn’t work that way.
Conversational implicature suggests that when you give a list of 33 ways in which reductionists can be biased, you are claiming that reductionists are exceptionally biased.
I don’t really get that feeling. But if some people do maybe it would make sense for Phil to add a clarifying remark that that’s not intended.
I don’t see this as a Gish Gallop, as it doesn’t even appear to me to be an argument. It just looks like a list of biases that reductionists should take extra care to avoid. The “should” part wasn’t argued, just assumed.
“Reductionists should avoid these biases” implies that reductionists have those biases to a significant degree, and that when examples are given they are examples of these biases. This post contains at least 33 separate items implying that reductionists are often biased in some particular way, plus all the specific examples that are brought up. Nobody could possibly answer them all.
Why would you “answer” them? This is not a “reductionism is bad” argument, and I would find it oddly religious if you felt the need to insist that reductionism was unique among all methodologies in not imposing a bias.
“This is not a “reductionism is bad” argument”
Conversational implicature suggests that when you give a list of 33 ways in which reductionists can be biased, you are claiming that reductionists are exceptionally biased. It is logically possible that you are merely saying they are biased like everyone else, but actual human communication doesn’t work that way.
I don’t really get that feeling. But if some people do maybe it would make sense for Phil to add a clarifying remark that that’s not intended.