The straw opponent

The straw opponent (or strawman opponent) is more of a rhetorical device rather than a fallacy. Usually the straw opponent uses weak arguments that are easily defeated by the author, while at the same time meekly agreeing with whatever arguments the author uses to advance his case.

Perhaps the most famous example in the environmental area is Rush Limbaugh's (page  160) "long-haired maggot-infested FM-type environmentalist wacko."  Rush easily gets the "wacko" to admit that spotted owls eat mice because they are superior to the mice. Presumably Rush was about to get the "wacko" to agree that humans are superior to owls, just as owls are superior to mice.  Of course a real "wacko" would inform Rush that spotted owls primarily eat voles and flying squirrels, not mice, and that they eat them because they are predators, and not because of any superiority.

Another example is Dr. "Theo Ree" in Steve Milloy's Our Swollen Future.  Here the good doctor makes not the slightest attempt to defend herself or her work, or to correct the misinformation used by her interviewers.

References:

Limbaugh, R., The Way Things Ought to Be, Pocket Books, 1992.

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Written by Jim Norton

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