From the Ad Hominem page of The Nizkor Project (a site dedicated to countering Holocaust denial):

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument.

This post does not contain an in-depth discussion of the ad hominem fallacy, so follow some of the links provided if you need to know more.

The ad hominem fallacy fallacy is a particularly educational page. It provides an in-depth explanation when something is not an ad hominem attack, through use of many examples. I think this is a must-read. Skeptico has a good page dealing with Ad hominem attacks directed at him, explaining neatly what the ad hominem attackers are supposed to do instead of using absurd personal attacks. Then, of course, there is always the Wikipedia ad hominem page.

The first example of an ad hominem attack directed at me, that I can remember, was by Johan Kruger. He is a member of Creation Ministries International. He wrote the following in his first comment on my blog:

However, from several less than honest subsequent statements on your blog, one wonders if you really meant it. So, can folk really trust ANYTHING you say on your blog?

I have no clue what he is referring to with “several less than honest statements”. In my opinion he did not identify any dishonest statements. I take honesty extremely seriously, and would like to be informed if anyone notices anything they consider dishonest, as I would then like to rectify the matter. Instead of helping me improve my arguments, Johan Kruger prefers to make a sweeping statement in an apparent attempt to undermine everything I say on my blog. I’m quite certain this is an ad hominem attack?

Suppose you are making a movie and you need to have some guy chopped up or hanged, or something dramatic. Knowing you will be unable to chop up or hang a real person, you create a dummy. A dummy that won’t fight back. A man of straw. Now you can drive over this dummy with a truck, throw him out of an aeroplane with no parachute, or stick him in a microwave or a blender. Oh, the blender, particularly useful, as straw blends easily. No bone, no substance, which might clog the blender’s blades or hurt the gears of the machine.

That is the nature of a straw man argument. You create a caricature of the thing you would like to attack, and then you point out all the flaws of your caricature. You don’t bother dealing with reality, because fiction can be very convincing to those that would like to believe. They’re quite happy ignoring all the straw sticking out of the sleeves and the legs, and the lack of blood? Ah, no matter, throw on some tomato sauce or just move on to another scene before too many questions are asked.

The straw man argument. We will be investigating a huge number of such arguments in the upcoming weeks. Here is Wikipedia’s definition of the straw man logical fallacy:

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “set up a straw man” or “set up a straw man argument” is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. Often, the straw man is set up to deliberately overstate the opponent’s position. A straw man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent’s actual argument has not been refuted.

Its name is derived from the practice of using straw men in combat training. In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it. It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy, scarecrow argument, or wooden dummy argument.

Any questions about straw man arguments in general, before we investigate examples of such arguments employed to great effect?

Straw Man @ Cectic