Fewer, not none

About this video

At a school meeting a parent says, "The school shop should sell fewer sweets." Another parent stands up: "So you want to ban every treat and make children eat nothing but vegetables? That's ridiculous!" People nod. But that isn't what the first parent said. "Fewer sweets" is a small change; "ban every treat" is extreme and easy to laugh at. The second parent swapped the real claim for a sillier one and knocked that down instead. This fallacy is called the straw man.

A straw man is a scarecrow, a figure of a person made of straw, the kind farmers stand in fields. Beating one up is easy, because it can't fight back, and it proves just as little. This short animation knocks the scarecrow over, bits of straw flying, while the first parent's real words stand untouched.

A straw man usually changes the real claim in one of a few ways: making it bigger, adding "all" or "never" (so "some screen time is too much" becomes "you think all screens are evil"), or adding a bad reason. Sometimes it's done on purpose, often by accident, by not really listening. The fix is the simplest habit in the whole course: before you argue, say it back first. "So you're saying fewer sweets - not none, just fewer. Is that right?" And if someone builds a straw man of your argument, calmly say what you actually said. This video goes with The Straw Man lesson of Logic Level 1 on Knaph.

Transcript

1. 0:00The shop should sell fewer sweets.
2. 0:04So you want to ban every treat? But that's not what she said.
3. 0:12Knocking down a straw man is easy, and it proves nothing. The real claim still stands.
4. 0:18The usual trick is to make it bigger. Some becomes all. Fewer becomes none.
5. 0:24Say it back first. Is that what you mean?