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:
“That when she essayed
To drink lemonade,
She slipped through the straw and fell in.”
—Unknown. There Was a Young Lady of Lynn (l. 3–5)
“[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
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