I could while away the hours,
Conferrin’ with the flowers,
Consultin’ with the rain.
And my head I’d be scratchin’
While my thoughts were busy hatchin’
If I only had a brain.

Let’s talk about strawmen. No, not the kind you saw in the Wizard of Oz. I’m talking about the kind you find all over the place on the internet. Or in politics. Or in a lot of personal arguments.

The Strawman Fallacy is a logical fallacy, so first let’s cover what that means. Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that undercut an argument’s validity. A formal logical fallacy is an error in the actual logical structure of an argument, while an informal fallacy can be from other errors.

So, what’s a strawman fallacy? It’s when one party in a debate or argument distorts or misrepresents the argument being made by another party, usually to make the argument easier to attack. Let’s look at some examples.

Statement: “The United States spends 11 times as much on defense as the next 11 countries combined, so there’s no need to increase the defense budget.”

Response: “Why do you want the U.S. to be defenseless?”

The response misrepresents the original statement. There is a LOT of room between “not increasing the defense budget” and “leaving the U.S. defenseless.” Here’s another:

Statement: “I prefer cats over dogs.”

Response: “So you’re saying you hate dogs?”

The fallacy here is that obviously it’s possible to prefer cats over dogs without actually hating dogs.

Let’s look at one more that’s a little more topical to the last couple of years:

Statement: “The COVID-19 vaccines are not 100% effective, so until the pandemic is under control people should still take precautions, social distance, etc.”

Response: “If the vaccines don’t work, why bother getting vaccinated?”

Again, a lot of room between “the vaccines aren’t 100% effective” and “the vaccines don’t work, so why bother.” But I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen this and similar arguments online during the pandemic regarding vaccines and other protective measures.

There are a lot of variations possible with strawman arguments, but the key is that one side is misrepresenting the actual argument being made by the other side, sometimes to an extreme level to make it easier to attack or to make the other side’s position to appear extremist or ridiculous (or both).

Whether in the “real world” or on the internet, strawman arguments pop up all the time, so keep your radar up for them. The best defense is to call out when the other side is misrepresenting what you are arguing, and then clearly restating your position. If the other side continues to misrepresent what you’re saying, it’ll become obvious they aren’t interested in a fair discussion.

Until next time, folks! Stay Curious!

Dorothy: How do you talk if you don’t have a brain?

Scarecrow: Well, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don’t they?