blind with science

present singular third person blinds with science · participle present blinding with science · participle past blinded with science · past blinded with science

1. idiomaticTo overwhelm someone with details in order to influence or mislead them.

   He had no doubt that they would all have highly convincing stories, and would try to blind him with science if he attempted to pin them down.

   1955, Arthur C. Clarke, Earthlight, page 8

   4 more examples

   If you give him the full printed accounts of his company, he will react by saying that you are blinding him with science, and will pick on figures with many noughts after them and ask where all that money has gone.

   1957, Herbert Morrison, Vitality in Administration, page 51

   My Hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester has explained what could happen if he comes up against a really hot surveyor who blinds him with science and produces all sorts of cases of which the valuation officer has not heard.

   1970 January 20, James Allason, “Ascertainment of Gross Value of Dwelling-House”, in parliamentary debates (House of Commons), volume 794, column 443

   He'd blinded him with science. He'd tied him up with references and precedents. He'd cited Rabbi This from Cracow and Rabbi That from Vilna, till apparently the Great Developer looked like nothing so much as a bull quilled with banotilleros.

   1972, Brian Glanville, The Financiers, page 128

   Betting was how most of the money Bill earned from helping Fred ended up back in Fred's pocket and not in his. Fred blinded him with science and it always turned out to be to Fred's advantage, Bill thought ruefully.

   2014, Rosie Harris, A Dream of Love, page 150