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Revision as of 03:44, 24 October 2010
A strawman, also spelled straw man, is a misrepresentation of an opponent's position or argument, so as to make said position or argument appear logically weaker or otherwise worse than it actually is. Said misrepresented position or argument may then be proven to be wrong or bad, though doing so may be unnecessary.
Explanation-as-argument strawman
One common type of strawman is the explanation-as-argument strawman. In this particular type of strawman, a person falsely portrays an explanation of why an opponent believes something as being an argument for why the belief is false.
For example, suppose that one person says that a person believes that the Earth is flat because they lack intelligence and/or judgment. Then, the person who believes that the Earth is flat counters by portraying that explanation of why one believes that the Earth is flat, as if it were an argument that the Earth isn't flat. They might even go so far as to fraudulently portray the first person as using an ad hominem argument and/or some other type of logical fallacy.
