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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
 Posted - 06/20/2004 : 16:19:48
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Alright, with fallacies, I'm getting a bit confused between the difference of Straw man:
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.
And Slippery Slope:
1 Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).
2 Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.
Here is an example of Slippery Slope:
"We have to stop the tuition increase! The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester!"
Now isn't this also Straw man? It takes the claim, a tuition increase, exaggerates it, then shows that its wrong, therefore the tuition increase is wrong.
And here is an example of Straw Man:
"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."
But this seems like Slipper Slope as well. They take the claim, to fund attack submarines or not, and then distort it to funding all defenses.
To me, it seems that Straw Man and Slippery Slope are pretty much both the same. Am I going wrong somewhere, or are they just very similar?
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Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Zandermann
Skeptic Friend
USA
431 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2004 : 16:48:35 [Permalink]
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My understanding has always been that strawman "arguments" are much more 'out in left field'...that introducing a strawman brings in an entirely new aspect to the discussion.
For example, discussing crop-dusting and somehow crop circles and UFOs show up in the conversation. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2004 : 23:35:12 [Permalink]
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Straw man is taking a statement, distorting (or misrepresenting) it, and then arguing against the distorted version. Straw man is a type of non sequiter.
Slippery Slope is a chain of events that are unrelated to one another (generally exagerated) that lead to an improbable conclusion. Slippery slope is a fallacy of faulty causation. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 01:29:50 [Permalink]
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"You can't get a croc from a rock!" splutters Kent Hovind in one of the classics.
Edited to add that, while indeed you can't get a croc from a rock, you certainly can get a rock from a croc. 
Sorry 'bout that. Couldn't resist.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 06/21/2004 02:29:32 |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 06:46:46 [Permalink]
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The example of Slippery slope omits a transitory assumption. That is the implication that Senator Jones opposes most military procurement.
Strawman is where an individual attacks a tangetal point instead of the main point of an arguement or a blatant misrepresentation of that arguement.
I'll give some examples I have faced before.
Slippery Slope
"If the Demoncrats get a hold of this country, their whiney liberal leanings will push for more and more gun control until it is illegal for anyone to own a gun."
This assumes that Democrats (oftentimes deliberately mispelled Demoncrats by neo-conservatives) will not stop after reasonable limits on gun ownership are defined. (Assault weapons)
Strawman
"Wicca has the underlying Rede of 'An ye harm none, do what thou wilt'. This indicates a 'feel good' religion where anything goes and morality is non-existant."
In reality, the Rede indicates that the practioner must take care not to harm others in all of their actions.
Slippery slope goes to an unreasonable extreme based on a single action. Strawman takes verbage out of context of the main thrust of the arguement. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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