Suggestions for a mmehdy avatar

[Cat-Man_America]

here's how it is. there are some boardies that have this nearly magical ability to dismiss an argument/analogy not with a refutation of the merits, but by essentially "shazaaming" it away by invoking the incantation, "but that's just a straw-man argument."

Yeah, this strawman-itis is an epidemic on internet message boards in general. I can't stand it either. Whenever I see hear someone spout it, I want to reach through the net and punch him in the junk.

Do neither of you know what the term "straw-man argument" means?

Enlighten us.

 

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

 

 

Person A has position X.

Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).

Person B attacks position Y.

Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

Standard stuff. I was hoping Doohickamabob might have some additional info since he asked his question to "Straw-Man" as if Billy didn't know what he was doing.

 

It's simple stuff.

 

 

 

I prefer the term Scarecrow argument because use of the term straw-man is insensitive to those of straw persuasion.