Last month Living Light News, an Edmonton-based newspaper, ran a review of my book The Swedish Atheist, the Scuba Diver and Other Apologetic Rabbit Trails. You can read it here: LLN MarApril 2013 Cover to Cover . Interestingly, the reviewer refers to me using a “straw man” argument. But then he spoke very positively of the book and recommended it. This was perplexing given that the “straw man” is an informal logical fallacy in which an argument is misrepresented (often through oversimplification and/or caricature) so that it might be easier to refute. Suffice it to say, any book based on a straw man is not one you should be recommending!
I suspected that the reviewer had simply misunderstood the meaning of straw man, for he seemed to use the phrase as roughly approximate to “dialogue format”. An enquiry to the book review editor confirmed that the reviewer had indeed enjoyed the book, though she didn’t venture an opinion on the straw man reference. Anyway, that little perplexity certainly made for one of the more memorable reviews of the book!
