Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Examples of Straw Man

1. Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000."
   Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?"
   Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it."
   Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead."
   Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

2. "Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

3. Bill and Jill are arguing about cleaning out their closets:
   Jill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy."
   Bill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?"
   Jill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."
4. ALF forum administrator: "Your account has been deactivated (for using ad hominems) until you read the guidelines."
   Warwak: "I have learned forums are the wrong venue for drumming support and sharing ideas - doesn't matter anyway, as the ALF won't have me."
   ALF: "You need to listen better." (because you are exaggerating my position as there is a huge difference between asking someone to read guidelines and banning or not wanting someone)
   Warwak: "I am tired of caring what others think" (ALF note: you have made this one point very clear. Unfortunately on a forum entitled "brainstorming AR topics", listening to others is a big part of "sharing ideas")