Point Refuted a Thousand Times
PRATT:
PRATT:
"Is the government covering up alien visitation? Are vaccines harmful? Was the moon landing a hoax? These are questions that have been done to death, and there is nothing new you're likely to learn by questioning them further. Unless your motivation is emotional or ideological, it's time to recognize there's nothing to be gained from continuing to go over our most-trodden ground."
—Brian Dunning, Skeptoid[1]
A point refuted a thousand times, commonly abbreviated as PRATT, refers to a point or argument that has literally been refuted so many times that it is not worth bothering with.
It is a common phrase on Internet forums — as debates have a tendency to go in circles. Once people have refuted a point the first thousand times, it's hard for them to muster the motivation to do it again. It's a very common accusation levied at creationists, who are notoriously unimaginative in what they say.[2] Coincidentally, PRATTs can usually be found coming from prats (British English for "idiots").
Examples of PRATTs
These assertions are mostly very easy to refute, but remain persistent arguments due to ignorance.
Religion
Christians and Muslims belonging to fundamentalist sects are often told to avoid reading material and visiting websites that can disturb their faith. Therefore naïve fundamentalists may repeat bad arguments because they genuinely do not know the refutations. More cynical preachers may bring out arguments that have been refuted time after time because they know the sheep who flock to hear their messages will not find out the refutations.
Religious examples
Religion is required in order for a person to be moral/There is no morality without God.
If this were anywhere near true, the world would be in chaos[3] as a fairly sizable 16% of the world's population has no religion.[4] That's nearly 1 in 6 people who would happily murder you because they lacked any form of morality — this just doesn't stack up to observed evidence. Secular humanism has established several non-religious moral codes, and biologists and psychologists have tracked various evolutionary pathways for why we act in (what we define as) a moral manner. Perhaps most importantly, statistical analysis (rates of murder, adultery, rape, theft, etc.) shows that non-religious folks behave no less morally than those who have found religion (or had it hammered into them since childhood).
Atheism is a direct cause of lawless behavior.
This is similarly untrue for almost all beliefs, with the notable exceptions of illegalism and nihilism. Of course, even illegalists could be said to follow a law of their own devising: that society is bad and should be destroyed.
If this was true, most of Scandinavia would be well-known as a hotbed of insane, godless violence. As it currently stands, it isn't. Neither is there much obvious correlation between lawlessness and religion as most causes of crime are attributed to social and economic conditions. Religion, or lack of it, isn't often viewed as a contributing factor. Now there were the 2011 Norway attacks, but it's notable that those were committed against secularists by Anders Behring Breivik, a Christian.
Atheism is a religion.
While it's pretty certain some people can be quite passionate and organised about atheism — and even issue out religious-like edicts about what atheists should and shouldn't do — atheism, itself is not a religion by its very definition. It has no dogma to follow and is a completely non-prescriptive belief system. As proof of this, there have been quite a number of (often mutually exclusive) dogmas, philosophies, and prescriptive belief systems bolted onto atheism, of which the three best known are secular humanism, Marxism, and Objectivism.
While you could alter the "definition" of religion to include atheism, the practical result is really that the term "religion" loses a lot of its value as a category (except in the context of constitutional law, where classifying atheism as a "religion" greatly simplifies things conceptually), and the point would lose any power as an argument — becoming not only readily ridiculous but also self-defeating.
The simplest way to explain this is that "atheism" is as much a religion as "monotheism" or "polytheism". There are monotheistic religions, but monotheism itself is not the religion. There are at least two well-known ancient atheistic religions, Confucianism and Buddhism (though some versions incorporate the supernatural). It's entirely possible to believe in the existence of one or multiple gods without deriving any morality from them, in much the same way you could believe that life on Earth originated in a different star system without joining any alien-worshipping cult.
Same-sex marriage
Allowing same-sex marriages will "destroy" marriage… somehow.
Social conservatives frequently claim this despite the fact that those nations and states that have legalized it (Belgium, Canada, Brazil, Iceland, Denmark, Argentina, South Africa, New Zealand, Spain, Netherlands, Uruguay, United States, Sweden, etc.) are doing just fine, thank you. Judgement day didn't begin (despite many predictions). Populations didn't decline (or at least didn't decline any faster than before). The only thing that happened when gay marriage was legalized was that gay people could get married. It's that simple.
Another oft-repeated canard is that children are better off being raised by a mother and a father both. To support this, they cite a study that compared children raised by married, biological parents to those raised by single parents, step families, and cohabiting parents, without regard for gender. They then turn their ears off when one mentions the studies done that find children of same-sex couples are just as well-adjusted as those of opposite-sex couples. This came up in the infamous California ballot Proposition 8.[5]
In any case it's a false dilemma, since single-parent households will still be single-parent households whether gay marriage is legal or not. Preventing gays from marrying doesn't put second parents in those households.
Evolution
The Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves evolution.[6]
The Second Law is frequently misinterpreted here as if to say that complicated or ordered structures were completely forbidden from forming. While thermodynamics applies to both open and closed systems, the second law states that the entropy of closed systems almost always increases. The Earth (and the evolution occurring on it) is not a closed system. Energy from the Sun acts as a driving force for chemical reactions, which are a key part of biology. Thus evolution, like air conditioning and street sweeping, does not violate the Second Law.
The fossil record gives us no transitional forms.[7]
Entire pages of books and websites have been dedicated to listing transitional fossils. Just as much has been written describing what a transitional form actually would be — specifically that all fossils are really transitions between something and something else. Creationists say that transitional fossils don't exist so much that this could be considered the ultimate PRATT. Their repeated use of this point in the face of evidence is an extreme form of denialism.
Evolutionary theory is inseparable from Social Darwinism.[8]
Besides being a twisted argument from adverse consequences, this point is wrong. Charles Darwin was never involved in Social Darwinism and never endorsed it, nor was the theory technically inspired by it. However, even if he was a proponent of Social Darwinism or eugenics, and even if every evolutionary biologist since then was also a fan, this fact would have absolutely no bearing on the validity of evolution. This point is like arguing that theories about gravitation are all wrong because walking off a cliff results in death: the consequences of the theory don't affect its validity. Gore's Law is quite similar.
Evolutionism is a religion.[9]
As with every science, there is no worship in evolution, there is no blind faith or adherence — only evidence. Religion is a quite nicely defined social construct, and no aspect of evolutionary theories fit in. At all. In short, if you were to stretch the definition of "religion" far enough to include evolution, the term would, again, cease to have any real use or proper meaning.
The origin of life is not explained by evolution, therefore it is wrong.
The point cannot be overstated that evolution explains the origin of species and speciation, and the diversity of life as it reproduces (biogenesis). The origin of life would be explained by a different mechanism, abiogenesis, which is a separate process from evolutionary theory. This argument would be akin to claiming chemistry is wrong because it doesn't explain where atoms come from.
How come there are still monkeys?
Multiple problems exist with this one; it's mostly due to a severe misunderstanding about the nature of evolution. However, it is very common, and indeed quite a nice example to use as a branching point for dealing with these misconceptions. In short, though, "if white Americans descended from Europeans, why are there still Europeans?"
Economics
Supply side economics
This states that if we cut taxes on the rich, they'll invest the money and it will "trickle down" to the less wealthy. Supply side economics and the Laffer Curve are sound in principle (for instance, if you have massive levels of crippling taxation and a population being fed by a black market), but have been thoroughly debunked as wishful thinking, since whenever these tax cuts have been notably implemented, there has been barely any (if any at all) trickling down of benefits.[10] Despite this, the Laffer Curve is still held in high regard by many fiscal conservatives, even while its architect continues to act like a dolt.[11]
Conspiracies
Most purported evidence of the moon landing hoax.
There are as many websites out there pointing out the blatantly obvious flaws in this conspiracy theory as there are websites trying to support the conspiracy theory. "Buzz Aldrin isn't holding a camera!" (The astronaut's cameras were attached to their chests). "There's a prop visible with 'C' written on it!" (no one labels their props like that). "The flag waves in the wind!" (grow up and read some physics). And so on and so forth.
There's a face on Mars.
This still does the rounds on blogs, conspiracy websites, YouTube comments and the occasional woo-pushing documentary despite being thoroughly examined and revealed to be nothing particularly interesting. Higher resolution shots of the "face" have revealed it to be exactly what every skeptic said it was, just a mountain range with some funny shadows. It's a very interesting psychological effect known as pareidolia (indeed, this crops up every single time someone reports seeing a face in something, from Jesus on a toasted sandwich to the Devil in the smoke of the World Trade Center collapsing, yet the message still doesn't seem to get across).
Politics
Slavery and Jim Crow have long been done away with, and there's an African American in the White House, so racism is no longer an issue. / Not all men abuse women, so sexism no longer exists.
Just because racism is not as prevalent any more doesn't mean it's no longer an issue, and racism encompasses more than just discrimination against people of colour. Just because sexism is not so prevalent any more doesn't mean it has completely disappeared either. The denial of the existence of various forms of oppression, or of the offensiveness of a given statement are strategies used to derail or undermine people working to advance the interests of marginalized groups. If a member of a such group points out that something is oppressive to their group, they more than likely know better than someone not in that group because they live it every day. (Most likely they take the subject seriously enough to only produce such claims when they really think it's appropriate.) This holds doubly true for members of said marginalized group who also advocate for the rights of that group.
People who suggest that these claims are frivolous should back this up with the required extraordinary evidence, which they almost never do.
Communists weren't left-wing, and fascists weren't right-wing!
The former can be refuted completely outright; (B-b-but Hitler was a socialist. He wanted big government, workers owning the means of production, and gun bans. The opposite of what Republicans want![12] Sure, that was probably why he busted unions and put socialists and communists to death.) The latter refers to Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism, which is often used as a reference by hard-right bloggers and ideologues as "proof" fascism was left-wing, not right-wing, despite the fact the book has been refuted by everyone with actual expertise in the area, liberal and conservative.[13][14] It is probably used as a reference since debunking the book every time it comes up would be too tedious and irritating for most to bother with doing over and over again.
Prayer has been banned!
Check your Facebook feed and if you have any conservative friends, you'll see pissing and moaning that G-d has been banned from American public schools, and students can't pray without getting flogged. Except that's not the case. Students can pray all they want.[15] Granted, they couldn't stand up in the middle of class to recite the Lord's Prayer any more than they'd have a pass to stand up and sing "Modern Major General", but they can pray. What was banned was school faculty leading the class in prayer, being that this amounts to a government endorsement of religion. Point this out to those conservative friends, though, and they'll likely reject the information so they can hold onto their feeling of martyrdom.
The Weimar Republic failed because it was "too democratic"
No it didn't. The Enabling Act of 1933 was passed even though it clearly violated the substance of the constitution by a two thirds majority of the member of parliament present at the time, thus excluding the Communist MPs already thrown into jail by the Nazis. This was perfectly legal under the interpretation of the constitution then in force - the constitution could be changed by a two thirds majority of the members of parliament present at the time with a minimum of two thirds of the nominal members needed for such a vote. Thus only four ninths of the actual elected MPs were needed to change the constitution. In common practice laws that broke the constitution but did not officially alter its text could be passed in the same manner. Also Article 48 (Weimar Constitution)Wikipedia's W.svg gave the President (who though in theory elected by the people only once got a 50%+1 one vote majority in a popular election - in the 1932 reelection of Paul von Hindenburg) broad powers to govern without parliament which both Weimar era Presidents did during the 1923 crisis and again during the early 1930s. Even the powers of parliament to repeal such acts were denied through the President's power to dissolve parliament at his whim. If anything Weimar had too little democracy.
Science
The MMR vaccine is responsible for the worldwide autism epidemic!
No.
Polio hasn't been eradicated, it was just given a different name!
Polio has not been eradicated, due to the actions of religious fundamentalists in Nigeria and Pakistan.
GMOs (foods produced with genetic engineering methods) are toxic and poisonous!
There is no evidence of GMO foods being any more dangerous to humans than other foods. All foods naturally contain trace amounts of "toxins", and in many cases GMO crops actually contain less "toxins" than the alternate. As for the GMO crops that contain pesticides and so forth, all of these are safe for humans (and generally in the leaves anyway); chocolate is toxic to dogs, but that doesn't mean humans can't eat it.
Environmentalism
A global ban on DDT killed millions of people in Africa!
This right-wing myth has been so completely refuted that there is now a "DDT ban bingo" that refutes every claim made by those who still rant about it.[16]
Gas taxes pay for public transit
Nope. Neither in any country of Europe nor in the US. Cars create a ton of external costs that gas taxes don't even begin to cover. Public subsidies for public transit out of the general fund are minuscule by comparison.
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