Straw Man

• Distorting, weakening, or oversimplifying someone's position so it can be more easily attacked or refuted
• Often includes poor paraphrasing, taking a quote out of context
• Covertly replaces the original proposition with a different, weak one that is easily defeated

Examples

Self-driving Cars

• Elon Musk
  • Self-driving cars are a natural extension of active safety
  • Something we should do
• Reporter
  • Self-driving cars aren't safe
  • Points to self-driving accident
• Elon never stated self-driving cars are 100% safe
  • Accident is taken out of context

Evolution

• Scientist
  • Explains how animals developed and diversified over millions of years
• Opponent
  • Questions why monkeys still exist if we evolved from them
  • Why don't we have three arms or other things to give us competitive advantage?
• Opponent is misunderstanding the theory
  • Poor use of the theory
  • Evolution does not say we evolved from monkeys (just have a common ancestor)

Fallacy Argument Philosophy