Definition and Examples of the Straw Man Fallacy

The straw man is a  fallacy in which an opponents argument is overstated or misrepresented in order to be more easily attacked or refuted. The technique often takes quotes out of context or, more often, incorrectly paraphrases or summarizes an opponents position. Then after defeating the position, the attacker claims to have beaten the real thing. Although the term straw man is a recent coinage, the concept is ancient. In the Topics, Aristotle acknowledges that in argument it would be inappropriate to interpret as someones position an opinion that he did not express or is not committed to, in virtue of what he said, according to Douglas Walton in Methods of Argumentation. The name of the fallacy represents the idea that although a straw man may look like a human, it wont put up any resistance in a fight. The straw man fallacy also goes by the name Aunt Sally, particularly in Great Britain. Straw Man in Commercials Commercials make use of straw man fallacies. In the famous Wheres the beef? Wendys restaurant advertising campaign, the commercials exaggerate the tiny amount of meat that other chains use in their burgers to show how much bigger and better its burgers are. Straw Man in Politics Straw man has always been the stock-in-trade of advertisers and political smear campaigns, illustrates authors Nancy Cavender and Howard Kahane in their book Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric. A group called Common Sense Issues made a million automated phone calls to voters in the 2008 South Carolina primaries claiming that John McCain has voted to use unborn babies in medical research. This was a gross distortion of his position to support research on stem cells gathered from embryos. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton was for open borders. He took a comment out of context from a speech she gave to a Brazilian bank about trade and energy to twist it into a statement that preyed on some peoples fears of increased undocumented immigration. He claimed she wanted people to be able to enter the border without going through any kind of process at all, which she said was not true. His sound-bite distortion likely had an effect on voters, as immigration was a big issue in the campaign, and his repetition of the claim was easier to remember than her stances about nuances in the complex issue. Sometimes people morph the straw man into a warning about a slippery slope where allowing one side to win would put humanity on a course of destruction. Any time someone begins an attack with So youre saying we should all just... or Everyone knows..., you can bet a straw man is coming, wrote author David McRaney in the book, You Are Not So Smart. Straw men can also be born out of ignorance. If someone says, Scientists tell us we all come from monkeys, and thats why I homeschool, this person is using a straw man, because science doesnt say we all come from monkeys. Countering the Straw Man To refute a straw man attack during a debate, point out the fallacy and how it is incorrect. If you ignore it, and the attacker keeps harping on it, the real issue could get buried in the straw. If you try and defend what the opponent said is your position, it gets increasingly difficult to show how the opponent distorted your views. Sources Cavender, Nancy and Howard Kahane. Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric. 12th ed., Wadsworth, 2014. McRaney, David. You Are Not So Smart.  Gotham Books, 2011. Walton, Douglas. Methods of Argumentation. Cambridge University Press, 2013.