[hughprime]

The second sentence is a straw man.

Is there some kind of competition I don't know about to mention the words "straw man" in as many threads as possible? It seems to pop up in just about every thread, along with the words "correlation does not equal causation".

[mediaman]

Both logical weaknesses are common among arguments, and people here have a penchant for pointing them out.

I'd rather they point it out than let poor arguments pass for lack of language to describe it. Maybe we need new synonyms. Says something about the state of logical strength of many popular articles, doesn't it?

[misuba]

You see those a lot because they're two of the easiest forms of illogic to spot.

[tpyo]

I would consider straw men arguments more difficult to point out because you need to actually know about the subject to find them.

[dmoney]

"straw man" is the new "disingenuous".

[carbocation]

When I see disingenuous, I assume that you're saying someone is pretending X, despite the fact that they know that X is false. That is, I more-or-less assume malice.

When I see straw man, it often seems to be the case that the author didn't know any better. That is, I assume ignorance until proven otherwise.