One of the most devious tactics employed by seasoned debaters is to give the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent.

Theresa Pawlicki tells me she is 78 years old and has a daughter who is a stickler about proper English, so she lives in mild fear of saying the wrong thing. But that's not why Theresa wrote to me. "I ...

Jo Ann Rebane’s Opinion piece “What’s wrong with DEI? (The Union 6/18/25) is a master example of the form of fallacious argumentation known as Straw Man. In such arguments, the speaker first builds a ...

Regarding your editorial: “ A pistol ban on campuses,” this was a textbook example of a straw-man argument. The ideas of “a pistol in every pocket” and untrained civilians responding to crimes were ...