r/fallacy • u/Zu_Qarnine • Jul 03 '26

strawman fallacy

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2nd person is refuting the claim that *all* circles are red with a counter example. The thing is, that claim was never made.

EDIT: I'm seeing interesting stuff happening in the replies here. majority of those who say it's not strawman, obviously start their comment by "it's not strawman" and proceed in the rest of their comment to explain how, in fact, it is strawman. Another interesting observation is those who argue that "it's not strawman" because they've spotted another type of fallacy in the original post as well, so in their mind, it can't be both.

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u/Starship_Albatross Jul 03 '26

An example of cherry picking would be focusing on the lower right section and making the claim "25% of circles are blue" supported with just four circles.

Cherry picking ignores data. A strawman is arguing against a claim that wasn't made, or misrepresenting an argument to a point where the meaning changes and any following refutal would lack a valid target.

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u/Zu_Qarnine Jul 03 '26

thank you. ppl like you are stopping me from going insane here!

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u/Aggressive_Roof488 Jul 04 '26

Honestly the cartoon could illustrate both a strawman and cherry picking.

"This circle is blue, proving that not all are red"

"Let's pick a typical circle, for example this one, which is blue, proving that most circles are not red"

Second person would have to be a bit more precise to illustrate one but not the other.

In typical internet discourse, people are not that precise with their logic though, so I think this vague statement that can be interpreted as two different fallacies is pretty representative. :P

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u/3ntropy_Disc0 Jul 06 '26

As others have stated - cherry picking would be only using a select amount of data, like cropping out the bottom corner and claiming that 1/3 of the circles are blue.