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To: WVKayaker
Did you mean that evolution is a “Trojan horse” for atheism? A straw-man for atheism? Does that even make sense? Lets see.....

straw-man: A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.

So atheists put forth a misrepresentation of evolution? Those that say it rejects/denies God certainly do. Is that what you meant? Somehow I don't think so.

119 posted on 06/27/2008 4:31:19 PM PDT by allmendream (Life begins at the moment of contraception. ;))
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To: allmendream

Nizkor.org-
Fallacy: Straw Man

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.”


120 posted on 06/27/2008 4:34:58 PM PDT by WVKayaker (You mileage may vary.)
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