PRATT lists

[Aggie]

I don’t see these here as often as I did around the time I first joined, but I still find them at other sites sometimes. For people who don’t know what a PRATT list is, it’s basically a list of previously refuted arguments whose only strength is in how many of them there are. It’s usually copied and pasted from another site by someone who doesn’t understand most of them. The best example of this I can remember is one Durang0 was using around the time I joined, which can be found about halfway down the page at http://www.christianforums.com/t94405-a-challenge-to-durang0.html&page=2 . To my knowledge, only creationists use this method.

So, here’s the question: do creationists who use this method hope they’ll be able to make bad arguments more convincing by listing dozens of them? Or is there another point to this that I’m not thinking of?

I haven’t yet seen a PRATT list convince anyone of anything, and usually the only thing they accomplish is to annoy people. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone winning support for creationism with the tactic of trying to make up for the flaws in their arguments by being annoying.

Any ideas?

 

[alerj123]

Well to an ignorant person looking for ways to "disprove" evolution, PRATT lists look good.
Also an ignorant person who is trying to find ways that science is wrong like to get reassured by PRATT lists.

 

[Matthew777]

The Talk Origins PRATT list, its list of refutations to Creationist claims, lacks substance in its responses to Intelligent Design.

 

[Douglaangu v2.0]

How do they lack substance? Why do you think they do? How would you improve them?

Where is the substance in your post?

 

[notto]

The Talk Origins PRATT list, its list of refutations to Creationist claims, lacks substance in its responses to Intelligent Design.

You have to visit talkdesign.org for that. It shows the pseudosciencethat intelligent design is.

http://www.talkdesign.org/introfaq.html

 

[Aggie]

The Talk Origins PRATT list, its list of refutations to Creationist claims, lacks substance in its responses to Intelligent Design.

I should have been more specific that one of the defining traits of a PRATT list is all or almost of the claims in it are unsupported. (As was the case in the one from Durang0 I linked to.) Most of the articles at Talk.Origins have sources in peer-reviewed literature, which they cite.

 

[mikeynov]

The Talk Origins PRATT list, its list of refutations to Creationist claims, lacks substance in its responses to Intelligent Design.

But you couldn't possibly point out why, just like you were never capable of ever offering any means of empirical testing for ID.

 

[Matthew777]

You have to visit talkdesign.org for that. It shows the pseudosciencethat intelligent design is.

http://www.talkdesign.org/introfaq.html

I'm not too hip with Talk Design, I am just not digging it. Their review of Darwin On Trial, in my opinion, fails to make adequate refutations but instead makes personal attacks on Johnson himself.

 

[tocis]

So, here’s the question: do creationists who use this method hope they’ll be able to make bad arguments more convincing by listing dozens of them? Or is there another point to this that I’m not thinking of?

As far as I can tell:

They use these PRATTs because they aren't aware of them being PRATTs. They have been taught biblical creationism and nothing else, they have been taught that science is made by humans, therefore fallible in contrast to scripture, and thus that science isn't worth learning about. This naturally leads to the creationist avoiding everything that shows his dogma to be nonsense (or, in his eyes, that shows his "proven scientific fact" actually being disproven by proper science as opposed to creation "science"). And here he comes, then, from his point of view presenting the shining truth to those ignorant evilutionists(TM), absolutely sure that his Divine truth will win.

Sad, actually. If creationism couldn't do any harm to anyone, the creationists should be pitied. They have fallen victim to very much the same methodology that is also commonly used in every totalitarian regime, no matter what nature. The Enemy(TM) (read: all who disagree) are demonized right from the start so that (hopefully) no one of the dictator's slaves will ever get into contact with all that pesky truth out there...

Of course, how someone can keep ignoring all refutations thrown his way, instead just regurgitating his points as if he still didn't know that because of those refutations no one will accept them... instead of doing the logical thing (trying to refute the refutations - after all, if he is so clearly right doing this should be child's play, no?)... is another question.

The word "dogma" comes to mind again. "Aaaaah, no, they can't be right because they're evilutionists!" or something similar...

 

[notto]

I'm not too hip with Talk Design, I am just not digging it. Their review of Darwin On Trial, in my opinion, fails to make adequate refutations but instead makes personal attacks on Johnson himself.

Considering that Johnson himself uses personal attacks and claims of conspiracy within scientific circles (of which he himself has never participated), you should also then question his book as well.

 

[tocis]

The Talk Origins PRATT list, its list of refutations to Creationist claims, lacks substance in its responses to Intelligent Design.

Really? How so?

Note that, right from the start, everyone is welcome to believe whatever he wants, but if he wants to cloak his religious belief as science, he has to play by the rules of science - just like you wouldn't like someone joining a basketball game but insisting to play by his own rules instead of the official ones.
A proper scientific theory, among other things, has to be falsifiable. There must be some things which shouldn't be observed if the theory is correct, and which, if observed, prove the theory wrong. This is simply not possible with all that "intelligent design" nonsense. We observe this-and-that? Oh well, The Designer(TM) wanted it that way. We observe just the opposite? Oh well, then The Designer(TM) really wanted it that way instead.

Everything fits into intelligent design (or, to call it more fittingly, IDiocy). Does this mean you shouldn't believe in that? No. But it does mean that this "theory" isn't scientific, no matter how you want to express it.

 

[Ozymandius]

I beleive that YEC's also don't realize what science is. Perhaps they've seen a few shows and had a few classes in middle school, and they assume anything that has big numbers and uses words they are unfamiliar with is probably scientific. Hence, PRATT list. I don't think it's so much malevolence as it is ignorance, even from the issuers of said lists.