Essay talk:Argumentum abusi fallacia

Straw man
Straw man is abused in even worse ways than that. Two related methods of abuse I see all the time:
 * 1) Alice argues x. Bob uses a reductio ad absurdum to show that x leads us to position y. Alice yells "straw man, I don't endorse position y!" without engaging Bob's argument. (Of course, the straw man accusation would be legitimate if Alice shows that the reductio ad absurdam argument is flawed.)
 * 2) The more weaselly version, which I like to call the "straw disclaimer." Alice argues for position x, but includes a brief disclaimer that she's not arguing for x-prime. Bob points out that x and x-prime are indistinguishable for all practical purposes. Alice shouts "straw man, on page one, I explicitly state that that's not my argument!" Alice evades Bob's argument. (The most blatant form of this might be "Not prejudiced, but..." -- "Look, I said on page one that I'm not a racist!") Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Might be worth expanding the Straw Man entry, then. Pretty much the entire Thunderf00t thing over the last few days can be summed up by this. Scarlet A.pngsshole 01:52, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Which one? Or both? I probably see the second one in play most often. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if a substantial number of papers entitled "Response to Criticism of My Book/Paper/Article" just boiled down to quoting a straw disclaimer and then blowing off criticism. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC)