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The Straw Man Fallacy in Informal Logic

The straw man fallacy is an informal fallacy in which an opponent's position is misrepresented—typically exaggerated or oversimplified—into a distorted version that is easier to attack, and refuting that distorted version is then wrongly presented as refuting the original claim. This concept belongs to informal logic / critical thinking, within the study of fallacious reasoning, and highlights the importance of accurately representing an interlocutor's actual position before critiquing it.