Straw Man

Comment #6

Tenaj — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:35:47 GMT

Ridge, your ancestors will be proud of you, you don't stutter like jarasan. You just flap your wings, but the buzzing is annoying.

Comment #5

jarasan — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:02:04 GMT

Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and Out. Four and O... [ More ]

Comment #4

rdgrnr — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 04:54:23 GMT

That being said, I hope you will continue to post in that vein without all the vitriol and invective. It's much easier to debate and discuss issues when we act with respect and civility towards one another. We all need to work together. Peace.

Comment #3

jarasan — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 02:42:52 GMT

Oh Oh!

Comment #2

Tenaj — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:31:13 GMT

Cointoss it's clear what's it like. Many examples. It's idiot proof.

Comment #1

Coin Toss — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:53:44 GMT

______________________________________ Hereâ€™s How You Know Youâ€™re Losing a Debate posted on August 20, 2012 by Gary DeMar While I donâ€™t debate for a living, Iâ€™ve been involved in lots of debates over the past 30 years. Some of them have been before live audiences in a formal debate setting, on the radio with callers, books, and (mostly) with emails and comment posters. A few years ago I did three radio shows over the same number of days for 7.5 hours where the... [ More ]

Original Blog Entry: Straw Man

Tenaj — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:06:40 GMT

Straw man

A straw man, known in the UK as an Aunt Sally, is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To attack a straw man is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the straw man ), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

Origin

The origins of the term are unclear. The usage of the term in rhetoric suggests a human figure made of straw which is easily knocked down or destroyed, such as a military training dummy, scarecrow, or effigy. The rhetorical technique is sometimes called an Aunt Sally in the UK, with reference to a traditional fairground game in which objects are thrown at a fixed target. One common folk etymology is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe in order to indicate their willingness to be a false witness.

Reasoning

The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:

Person A has position X. Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y. The position Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including: Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position. Quoting an opponent's words out of context i.e. choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions (see fallacy of quoting out of context) Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.

Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.

Examples

Straw man arguments often arise in public debates such as a (hypothetical) prohibition debate:

Person A: We should liberalize the laws on beer.

Person B: No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.

The proposal was to relax laws on beer. Person B has exaggerated this to a position harder to defend, i.e., unrestricted access to intoxicants It is a logical fallacy because Person A never made that claim. This example is also a slippery slope fallacy.

Another example:

Person A: Our society should spend more money helping the poor.

Person B: Studies show that handouts don't work; they just create more poverty and humiliate the recipients. That money could be better spent.

In this case, Person B has transformed Person A's position from more money to more handouts , which is easier for Person B to defeat. Furthermore, Person B fails to mention what the money could be better spent on.

Person A: Sunny days are good.

Person B: If all days were sunny, we'd never have rain, and without rain, we'd have famine and death.

In this case B has falsely framed A's claim to imply that A says that only sunny days are good, and has argued against that assertion instead of the assertion A has made.

Wikipedia

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