Strawman - The Thread

OK. sorry in advance for the ignorance.

I've seen the term "strawman" argument bandied about many times in here. I "kinda" know the definition? Not certain I really got it in terms of discussing basketball and or politics/religion, though.

Could one or more of you kind souls provide a "primer" regarding one or more of the arguments you've been in where a strawman was used?

That would be the sweetest.

Thanks

 

An example of "strawman" would be someone saying there is such thing as an atheist Jew; then the other replies "so you can be a Christian Jew too"

Mainly it's a way to argue with someone; using what they say and drastically overreact the response based on that statement.

Another example is hickson is a great defender because he gets 8 defensive rebounds. Everyone knows he's not a good defender; but using it because it says "defensive" somehow supports your claim.

 

P.S. I use strawman a lot because its a way to expose something silly. Some don't like it because it really doesn't have much merit. I do it because it gets under your skin.

 

NICE

or I hseen a lot of guys prop up some BS aspect that they can saftly destroy, while avoiding the orrigonal arguement..

 

Hahaha yeah that's used too!

 

And a big old "fuck you mags" right back at you.

 

Haha

 

this isn't exactly right.

a straw man argument (straw man logical fallacy) is simply misrepresenting your opponents position(s) in order to support your own.

an example would be an atheist saying to Mags that his belief in Christianity must be false because the earth is not 6000 years old.

 

See sometimes it works!

 

No it's not.

 

lets see..this is where I supposed to distract with some childish phrase, like



Link?

 

Early on, this thread is already apparent confirmation that none of us in here can seem to agree on any one given topic.

WAIT! The Blazers!!

Er, wait...................never mind.

 

Well crowtbot likes to disagree with everything I say, so take that for what it's worth

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

 

It's simple, it's setting up an argument to knock down that is different than the original main argument.

Example
Dude 1 has been arguing that Batum is a bad defender
Dude 2 has been arguing that Batum is a good defender
Then dude 1 says: Batum punched a guy in the nuts, that's just someone with bad character. Why would the rest of the blazers wast someone like that on their team.

Dude 1 changed the topic from defense to character because they had an argument for that.

 

One wouldn't expect anything less than from one made from Molybdenum.

 

that's a straw man : )

 

this isn't exactly right either. a straw man is not changing the topic. it is arguing against or otherwise using to your benefit a position that is in reality non-existent.

 

Ok, so set up a simple example