Would somebody please give an EXAMPLE of the "straw man " argument..as relates to the paranormal?

Question

I read Wiki's definition...as usual, I didn't totally understand their definition. Just one question and answer will do.( If you hurry maybe you'll get BA...no matter who you are!! lol)

Answer 1

Here's an example from a non skeptic.

Psychokinesis does not exist because not one single person has ever demonstrated it ( which is also a lie). If it existed it could be demonstrated and someone would have won the million dollar Randi challenge.

So they take a phenomena they do not understand (psychokinesis) and say the only evidence for it that it is possible is a demonstration under the rules of a magician and no one has done that so it must not exist. Thus, they say there is no evidence for it. You set up your oppositions weakest argument to appear as their strongest and then you set the rules, and then you knock down the weakest argument claiming to win.

This ignores that psychokinesis has been demonstrated by dice throwing experiments (never mentioned because it would strengthen the straw man) and random number generators (also never mentioned) and you fail to site the positive results acquired since the 1930's.

Never mention anything that you can't win the argument against (straw man).

Answer 2

A straw man argument means setting up a fake example of something and fighting that because you don't know how to fight the real argument.  

An example - say you didn't believe in evolution, but you also didn't really understand evolution, and neither did your audience.  Instead of saying 'evolution is defined as the change in allele frequencies over time', you'd set up a 'straw man' version of evolution - such as, 'evolution says that you came from a monkey'.  That's obviously NOT what evolution says, but if you don't know any better, you wouldn't know that.  So then they can say 'I didn't come from a monkey!', and scientists will say, well, yeah, no one said you did, and they can claim they won - and they never addressed the actual issue.

Answer 3

eri's on the money as usual. I'll offer a couple example relevant to us here.

One common strawman I hear is something to the effect of: "Skeptics demand 100% proof before they believe in anything." That's a commonly heard misrepresentation of the skeptic's position in order to advance an argument for a paranormal claim. To be fair, here's one from the other side: "Sure you would believe it, you have such an open mind that all sorts of garbage falls in".  This attempts to discredit a claim by misrepresenting the claimant as someone who doesn't critically examine anything they believe in. It's an ad hominem fallacy as well.  And who hasn't heard, "For a believer no amount of evidence is needed while for a skeptic no amount of evidence is enough". That's a double straw man!

Other examples of straw man arguments are the claim that skeptics are "pseudoskeptics" (also an ad hominem fallacy) or the claim that believers are fanatics (also an ad hominem fallacy).

Basically, any time you deliberately try to misrepresent the other side in order to discredit it, it's a straw man fallacy.

EDIT: Deenie, no a generalization is not necessarily a straw man unless it misrepresents the general quality of whatever it is describing for the purpose of advancing an argument. Generalizations are very useful for describing things but the tacit assumption behind them is that they doesn't necessarily apply to each and every person or instance.

Answer 4

Eri and TR are on the mark.  To simplify, think of a scare crow.  It appears to be a human.  It draws the attention of animals without even really being anything more than a fixture.  It isn't real, yet the animals are concerned about it.  Now to relate to an argument in paranormal.  One straw man argument I really hate is when someone can't defend their viewpoint, either because the other answers are just too good or the person doesn't know enough about the subject.  So instead of answering the question, they make a direct attack on someone that may have already answered or even the asker.  This causes all h**l to break loose, and soon noone is paying any attention to the question.  Everyone jumps on the bandwagon, skeptics and non-skeptics alike, and they concentrate on defending one another.  Soon, the asker has no choice but to consider the question a complete failure.  Someone who didn't even answer the question was able to draw the attention of other answerers and future answerers.  That person is the scare crow, or "straw man."  I suppose straw person would be more politically correct.