Tim Bass
08-07-2008 02:40 AM
According to our friend Wikipedia, the
Straw Man argument is a
red-herring fallacy where one party in a debate describes a position that, on the surface, resembles an opponent’s actual view but is easier to refute.* Then, in counterpoint, the debating partner attributes an easily refutable position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent’s position). Wikipedia says:
1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B ignores X and instead presents position Y.
Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
- Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent’s position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent’s actual position has been refuted.
- Quoting an opponent’s words out of context - i.e., choosing quotations that are not representative of the opponent’s actual intentions.
- Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender and then refuting that person’s arguments, thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.
- Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, such that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
- Oversimplifying an opponent’s argument, then attacking the simplified version.
4. Person B draws a conclusion that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself.
For example, there has been some lively discussions recently around the notion that CEP is overhyped.
Debate:***** “CEP is Overhyped.”
Person A:** “CEP has been overhyped.”
Person B:**** “CEP is just hype.”
The point of the discussion by person A was to point out that CEP has been overhyped.* Person B has exaggerated this to a harder to defend position, “CEP is mere hype.” or “CEP is just hype.”
From the customer perspective, I don’t think that fallacies and red-herring arguments are good for CEP. * Believe me, if we could take an “out of the box” stream processing rules-engine and bolt it on to a network and insure a client it would detect complex fraud, or diagnose network faults accurately, and not put my entire professional reputation on the line, I would do it in a heartbeat.
It is not the speed of the an engine which makes a good CEP engine, it is the capability of the analytics to deliver high-quality, high-confidence complex event detection in real-time.
Source...
