A straw man, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally, is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and to refute it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
Famous quotes containing the words straw and/or man:
“There is no limit to what a man can do so long as he does not care a straw who gets the credit for it.”
—C.E. (Charles Edward)
“The white man’s mullein soon reigned in Indian corn-fields, and sweet-scented English grasses clothed the new soil. Where, then, could the red man set his foot?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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