What is a "straw man Argument"?

Answer 1

Straw man is when you take your opponant's position, then exagerate it past what they believe, to the point where it is obviously stupid to any intelligent person, and then logically shoot the exagerated arguement (the straw man) down.

So it looks like they are winning the argument, when really they aren't even addressing the real issues.

Answer 2

A straw man argument is when you come up with a worthless "example" of your opponent's side, and then proceed to beat it up. By beating up this "example" you are implicitly stating that your side of the argument is right.

The essential nature of a straw man argument is that it is disingenuous, or at least deeply mis-informed.

An example of a straw man fallacy:

1.

Person A: I don't think children should run into the busy streets.
Person B: I think that it would be foolish to lock up children all day with no fresh air.

By insinuating that Person A's argument is far more draconian than it is, Person B has side-stepped the issue. Here the "straw man" that person B has set up is the premise that "The only way to stop children running into the busy streets is to keep them inside all day".

Answer 3

Putting words in the mouths of your opponents to construct an argument that they have never proposed and then refuting that argument.

An example would be to claim that atheists say that Christians are never good people and then you produce examples of good works done by Christians to prove that the atheists were wrong, while what the atheist really said was that Christianity is not the only source of goodness in the world, that there are others.

What you have refuted is the 'Straw Man' argument (Christians are never good) which was never claimed in the first place leaving the substantive point (Not all goodness comes from Christians) unanswered.

Answer 4

It's a logical fallacy, i.e. an "unfair" or illogical argument
Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Person B wants you to believe that X is therefore false/incorrect/flawed.

This is technique that is surprisingly common today among politicians and their supporters.

Example:
Politician A wants to place limits on government spying on our own citizens.
Politician B says politician A wants to leave us defenseless.
Politician B argues that therefore we shouldn't limit our government's ability to spy on our own citizens.

The "Straw Man" is the argument that A wants to leave us defenseless, which is what A was arguing at all.

Answer 5

''A straw man argument is based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent.''

From Wikipedia,link below.

Answer 6

It's when someone explains what his opponent's argument supposedly is, only he makes it extremely weak and easy to refute in a way that his opponent never would. It's a tactic to used win an argument by distorting and undermining other people's real point of view.

People use it all the time. You'll see a lot of it on this site, for example.

Answer 7

A straw man arguement is where you claim that the other side's position is something that it is not, something that is easier to disprove, then disprove that, and claim the opponent is wrong.

You assert that red is the bext color for a room. I say, "But my opponent thinks red is a color. It's not, it's just a frequency of light. So he's wrong."

Or, "Evolution is false because science can't explain the chirality issue." Chirality has to do with the origins of life, once life was started, it would naturally evolve with the same chirality that life began with. Evolution has nothing to do with the origins of life, only the development once it existed. THe problem of chirality is for abiogenesis, not evolution.

Answer 8

It means you set up an argument that supposedly represents your opponent's position and then prove it wrong. You really haven't dealt with your opponent's argument, but it can look as if you have.

Answer 9

Same as above. You can also set up a "dummy" hypothetical with the easy solution in your favor programed in.

Answer 10

essentially, a purposely weak version of something you disagree with, set up to be easily defeated.

an example would be:
if evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?"

to the uneducated it's crushing, to the educated it's obscenely ignorant. it doesn't actually effect evolution, but since the uneducated wouldn't know any better, it works on them.