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. ^sshole 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)