handwaving

handwaving

Actions, words, or ideas that are meant to impress or appear convincing but which are in reality insubstantial or inconsequential. The governor has been doing a lot of political handwaving over the issue of immigration lately, but few suspect that anything will actually be accomplished in the coming year.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • airy-fairy
  • fairy
  • snack down
  • run on fumes
  • run on empty
  • play a bit part
  • play a bit part (in something)
  • small beer
  • small potatoes
  • thank God for small mercies
References in periodicals archive
Of course, you aren't going to get club dancing, bum-revolving, handwaving stuff it's got to be more Riverdance if you want the pad to pick up your steps and score.
The epitome of handwaving? Larval feeding and hypotheses of metazoan phylogeny.
But there is no such thing as magic--only misdirection, handwaving to draw the eye here while something prosaic and comprehensible is happening there.
It left the former Manchester United player in obvious, handwaving pain on the floor, but he was able to continue after a couple of minutes' treatment.
What is understandably heartening for Gardner is that new discoveries in neuroscience have finally substantiated MI theory, providing what Gardner called "biological evidence" for a theory for which, when it debuted in the early 1980s, "there was little relevant evidence from genetics or evolutionary psychology; such speculations [as MI Theory] were mere handwaving." (27) He ended his address with this reflection:
The biggest glossy-eyed handwaving we see is on the cost of operation of these aircraft.
The Arsenal boss' act of handwaving histrionics every time there is a perceived injustice against the Gunners lends itself perfectly to the cheeky chant and jig that the Bluenoses created during last weekend's 1-1 draw.
Like Buffy's vampires), and while it starts off as science fiction with aliens and invasions and memories of spaceships, it soon lurches into vague handwaving about 'charms' and magic and superpowers as soon as the reader might start thinking about inconsistencies or there's a plot problem to be got over.
But dogmatism and group-think can take secular forms as well, as Stephen Hicks makes clear in his quick dissection of Carlin Romano's handwaving discussion of Ayn Rand's Objectivism (see Hicks's Afterwords article, "America the Philosophical: Carlin Romano on Ayn Rand").