Logical Fallacies

I regularly see arguments on Twitter and straw men get mentioned. Initially, I thought it was something to do with the Wizard of Oz and lacking a brain. However, after a little research found it to be a little more sophisticated.

A fallacy is an argument which uses poor reasoning. An argument can be fallacious whether or not its conclusion is true. An error that forms from a poor logical form is sometimes called a formal fallacy or simply an invalid argument. An informal fallacy is an error in reasoning that does not originate  in improper logical form. Arguments containing informal fallacies may be formally valid, but still be fallacious. (wikipedia)

A straw man, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally, is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of an opponent's argument. To be successful, a straw man requires that the audience be ignorant or uninformed of the original argument. (see more here on wikipedia)

The image below outlines the main logical fallacies:

(source: Sheffield Company - can also download bigger version on this site)

For more on this, read "An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments" by Ali Almossawi (thank you to Tim Taylor for providing me the link).