Sidebar: Oh The Strawmanity!

In the course of my YouTube experience, I ran across a lot of people who used logical fallacies, particularly in the debates concerning religion.  Since my conservative counterpart focuses on them in his fact-check project, blog, and in commentary on Facebook, I also realized that this may have been the same place where he honed his skill on spotting/using them, besides that which he received in his education.

 

A straw man is an argument based on misrepresentation of the opponents' position.  The trouble with straw man is they are often thrown around like so many straws.  They are a logical-fallacy way of saying in your opinion the opponent is lying.   Some people will use them if they don't have anything else to argue with, like an accusation that bears a slight relation to the claim, so it's often difficult to distinguish whether it's really a straw man.  In other words, like everything else, logic can be abused.

 

My main defense (more than once) of PolitiFact's choice of the 2012 Lie of the Year--Mitt Romney's attack ad in the electoral-college crucial state of Ohio where there were several Chrysler plants, that its Jeep division was going to build cars in China--was its cruel inference that those Ohio plants would close.  If I had written that defense today, I would have stated it differently:  Romney's statement (and the ad) were straw men.  He misrepresented the position of Fiat-Chrysler and he misrepresented what Obama did at the time.

In a statement from Fiat-Chrysler management, it refuted that very misrepresentation.  In Obama's case, that was pretty much left to the fact-checkers.

But that is not really the point of this post.  The point is as I wrote it in the way I did, my counterpart attacked me by saying my arguments were straw men--as he stated, "an impressive array."  In other words, he was defending Romney's straw man by claiming those who said it was not true were using a straw man (not just PolitiFact, but Factcheck.Org and the Washington Post). He was doing the very thing that I had seen done in YouTube and Facebook commentary:  when all else fails, bring out the straw man.  Now I understand.

Now YOU can win every debate with Fallacies

Fallacies are defects in an argument that cause it to be invalid, unsound, or weak. In a deductive argument, the existence of a fallacy means that the argument is not valid - even if the premises are true, the conclusion might still be false. A fallacy does not guarantee it is false; a fallacious argument fails to provide a good reason to believe the conclusion, even if that conclusion is correct.

So, no matter what your adversary says, you can render their argument as weak and ineffective, simply by learning to apply common logical fallacies to anything they say.  In the dialogue below, you can replace "1 plus 1 equals 2" with just about anything.  You just need to look for the fallacy you can attack, regardless of the soundness of the argument.  Here's a master fallacy debater who I'll call Blovius Wacko (BW) doing just that in this satirical Facebook page conversation.

Commenter: 1 plus 1 equals 2.

BW: That’s just an assertion. Do you have a citation?

Commenter: Oh geez, how ‘bout Media Matters for Pete’s sake!

BW: Media Matters is liberally biased, so what it claims means nothing.

Commenter: Look, 1 plus 1 equals 2 because 1 plus 1 equals 2.

BW: You’re begging the question, also known as a tautology.

Commenter: But 1 plus 1 equals 2, it can’t equal anything else.

BW: That’s bifurcation fallacy. You’re presenting a false choice.

Commenter: 1 plus 1 equals 2 by law of math, see Euclid, Aristotle, Fibonacci, the original great mathematicians.
BW: That’s not evidence, just the fallacy of appeal to tradition or authority. You should also look up the genetic fallacy, which applies as well.  So far your argument is very, very weak.

Commenter: If 1 plus 1 equals 2, then 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Red Herring



BW: Fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc…correlation is not causation, plus you’re moving the goalposts from 1 to 2 to 4.

Commenter: Everyone knows that 1 plus 1 equals 2.

BW: That’s the fallacy of argumentum ad populum, just because everyone believes it doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s just another red herring like the appeal to authority.

Commenter: Even your own Newt Gingrich said 1 plus 1 equaled 2.

BW: Just because Newt Gingrich said it doesn’t make it true. By the way, that’s called the tu quoque fallacy.

Commenter: Look, if you have a beer and I have a beer, that’s two beers.

BW: Commenter is drunk with poor logic. This isn’t about beer—now you throw the Straw Man fallacy into it because you're running out of explanations.

Commenter: You know, it’s just stupid not to believe that 1 plus 1 equals 2.

BW: So now you’ve had to resort to ad hominen. Once again I’ve proven the many fallacies of your faulty reasoning.

Commenter: So, what does 1 plus 1 equal, Blovius?

BW: Now you’re shifting the burden. You’re the one who made the assertion. I’m just here to point out your pathetic reasoning and fallacious arguments. Now just wake up and admit to your having failed miserably at your argument.