Expand Your Thinking

Starting our look at a few logical fallacies, we have perhaps the most well known one, the “straw man” fallacy. The straw man fallacy is misrepresenting or misunderstanding an argument. You are stating or attacking/refuting an argument that is different than the one your opponent holds. To “attack a straw man” is to attack your misunderstanding or caricature of a person’s argument, not the real one. A “man” made out of straw (scarecrow) may look superficially like a real man, but it isn’t. Attacking or beating up a straw man is easy. Beating up a real man is harder. He…