why is it called a straw man argument
Straw man The term's origins are unclear. The usage of the term in rhetoric suggests a human figure made of straw that is easy to knock down or destroyâ€”such as a military training dummy, scarecrow, or effigy.[8] A common folk etymology is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe to signal their willingness to be a false witness.[9]
Creation and evolution in public education in the United States In the aftermath of World War I, the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy brought a surge of opposition to the idea of evolution, and following the campaigning of William Jennings Bryan several states introduced legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution. Such legislation was considered and defeated in 1922 in Kentucky and South Carolina, in 1923 passed in Oklahoma, Florida, and notably in 1925 in Tennessee, as the Butler Act.[1] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offered to defend anyone who wanted to bring a test case against one of these laws.[1] John T. Scopes accepted, and he started teaching his class evolution, in defiance of the Tennessee law. The resulting trial was widely publicized by H. L. Mencken among others, and is commonly referred to as the Scopes Trial.