Straw man
From RationalWiki
A straw man is an intentional misrepresentation of an opponent's position, often used in debates with unsophisticated audiences to make it appear that the opponent's arguments are more easily defeated than they are.
Straw men of evolution are particularly common, with creationists setting up a stereotype of evolutionary theory (one that, generally, no scientist would agree with) and demolishing them in debates, with the evolution proponent's real arguments largely being ignored.
Straw men are notoriously easy to construct, and require little more than extending the opponent's arguments beyond their original point until their stance appears ridiculous. Once the opponent has accepted (or failed to refute) such a set-up, one can simply attack the strawman position instead of the opponent's actual points, and claim any attempt subsequent attempt to correct the situation as a conceding the argument.
[edit] Examples of the straw man argument
In the Leader's Guide document prepared by the producers of the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, proponents of Intelligent Design claim:
At its core, Darwinism explicitly excludes purpose or intelligent guidance from the history of the development of life.[1]
Of course, "Darwinism", or as scientists call it, the theory of evolution, never claims this in the first place. As a scientific theory built first upon evidence - like all science - the idea that it assumes a position and then attempts to prove that position completely misrepresents not only what the theory says, but also the scientific method.
