[1] The term Bulverism was coined by C. S. Lewis after an imaginary character[2] to poke fun at a serious error in thinking that, he alleged, frequently occurred in a variety of religious, political, and philosophical debates.
Lewis wrote about this in a 1941 essay,[3][4] which was later expanded and published in 1944 in The Socratic Digest under the title "Bulverism".
The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.
Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father—who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third—"Oh you say that because you are a man."
"At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument.
Lewis says, "Until Bulverism is crushed, reason can play no effective part in human affairs.