How to build a strawman

Or, how not to construct a logical argument.

I came across this from another blog/forum/thingy http://www.naturalnews.com/019364.html and then you start to realize how totally disconnected from reality some people are. So let's dissect this a little.

Firstly a rant about "extreme skeptics" where he constructs the definitions. So we get into the meat of the thing.

I mean the pseudoscientific zealots who berate anyone who believes in acupuncture, massage therapy, homeopathy, herbal medicine, sunlight therapy, breath therapy, meditation or any number of other natural healing modalities.

The so-called therepies for which not a jot of evidence exists for their efficacy in that list are: acupuncture, homeopathy, sunlight therapy (I'm assuming he means breathairians or something here - he doesn't define the term), breath therapy - what ever that is again he doesn't define it.

With the known useless lots he then puts in some of the maybe useful ones massage therapy - well we like a nice relaxing massage it feels good, herbal medicine - we all know some herbal remedies do stuff, they are often the precursors to real tested medicines, meditation - being introspective and thinking about things can be good too I'd not generally class it as 'medicine' though

Now it comes

They think vitamins are useless,acupunctureis quackery, and that all medical treatment should be limited todrugs, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

vitamins are useless? Let's meet all these skeptics who think vitamins are useless. It was scientists who discovered the things, why they are needed and the biological functions they perform. Yet he believes these scientists and doctors believe them to be useless. That is the start of a towering straw-man.

acupuncture is quackery - well it is, it's been shown that sham acupuncture has a better outcome than the traditional thing

All medical treatments consist of well you can see the list for yourself. Hands up all you skeptics who believe medicine only consists of drugs, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Come on, I want you all to come out of the closet and make yourselves known.

These extremeskepticsare truly impressive in the depth of their knowledge: There is nothing true in the universe that they don't already know. All science has already been discovered, they proclaim

Well, we know all science hasn't been discovered. If it had been science would stop (thanks Dara)

therefore all new "whacky" ideas about vibrational healing, energymedicineor nutritional therapy are based on nothing butquackery.

Now nutritional therapy is strange on, the regulated occupation is "dietitian" but we'll go with it, doctors have been rattling on for decades about eating properly, cutting down on fats and meat, getting your nutrients from well prepared and properly cooked vegetables and fruit. Indeed this kind of diet has seen mankind through some 2 million years of evolution, there is nothing new here but people don't listen. Heck a good steak tastes damn good.

That's why they've constructed an intellectual moat in order to keep all such bad ideas out of the Church of Logic.

Instead of just preaching and criticizingly, lets see the meat - ok, we're back to eating again - let's see the evidence, properly constructed for these so-called treatments. Vibrational energy, healing energy, homeopathy. It's no good just saying "it works because we say it works" let's see the evidence. Produce the detectors for this energy, let's see the needles move, let's see the physics. One thing we are damn good at doing is detecting energy, we can detect the energy from a single photon emitted at the very birth of the universe 14G years ago. If it has an effect, it can be measured.

Well the rest of the article carries on in much the same way. Build a straw-man and then demolish the argument based on things that nobody believes to be true in the first place.