Sexual Education and the electionFollow

Ok. Then without just saying "my analysis is right and your's is wrong", have her read the four paragraphs I quoted earlier, and explain how the conclusion in the 4th paragraph is *not* contradictory to the set of data included in the first three.


It takes almost zero understanding of the specific field to see that there is a contradiction there Smash. Heck. You know I actually do believe we should teach kids proper contraceptive use. This isn't about me wanting a specific result. I'm simply looking at a set of data that IMO does *not* match the conclusions being derived and saying "wait a minute...".


My resulting question is: Are we wasting our money with all these programs? Remember. I'm a conservative. To me, the default condition is for government not to get involved in something. It should only get involved if it can show that the benefit outweighs the costs (and I know I judge costs a bit differently then you do as well). If the end result of all the money we spend on these programs, and all the debates, all all the hand wringing, is either that AO is just as effective as contraceptive instruction, or alternatively that both are no more effective then no instruction at all (your latter argument), then why are we spending the money?


It just really seems to me that we insist on doing these things out of an assumption that they are the right thing to do. And we tend to cling to those assumptions even when faced with data that suggests otherwise. I'm simply suggesting that this may be one of those times...

Ok. Then without just saying "my analysis is right and your's is wrong", have her read the four paragraphs I quoted earlier, and explain how the conclusion in the 4th paragraph is *not* contradictory to the set of data included in the first three.

She already did. As did I. As did Joph.

You can't relate the two pieces of data because they're not using the same sample set.

Understand?

The teen pregnancy rate sample sets include everyone under a certain age.

The sex ed stats relate only to kids in public school.

Distinct. Understand?

We're all happy teen pregnancy rates are going down, and yes, I and everyone else am occasionally capable of claiming causation because of a correlation that supports our ideals. If there's more funding for feeding starving kids and less die, we'll claim that. If more starving kids die, we'll say we clearly need to increase funding even more. It's a tactic.

Here, however, there's nothing indicated by the teen pregnancy data. There are too many variables involved. The sample sets are too far apart. To establish anything useful, you have to study the outcomes for AO programs isolated from as many variables as you can. This has been made as difficult as possible, intentionally, because the ideology behind them is a moral one, not a scientific one. No one really cares if they're as effective or more effective or less effective, they just think it's the right thing to teach children.

Gbaji seems dead-set on ignoring the fact that he hasn't seen the study. I have and can say with authority that he's lacking in several pages of actual data. You know, the stuff the authors actually drew their conclusions from.

Interestingly, Hispanic teens had the greatest percentage of "delayed sexual activity" by a wide margin. White teens had a rather minor drop in delayed sexual activity and their decrease in pregnancy rates were almost entirely due to increased contraceptive use. Blacks fell in the middle there. Also, the greatest drop in pregnancy due to delayed sexual activity was from ages 15-17. A casual reading would lead one to guess that the lion's share of the drop in pregnancy rates due to delayed sexual activity is within female minority populations from 15-17. The study suggests changes in cultural norms may be largely responsible for this decrease -- more girls are taught via family and community that early pregnancy is a barrier to gaining wealth and advancement. They also note that the minority trend pre-dated the government push for AO programs.

The things you can learn when you read the study.

By the way, the 25% (really 23%) attributable to delaying sexual activity that Gbaji keeps using only applies to the 15-17 age bracket. The 15-19 age bracket only attributes 14% of the pregnancy reductions to delaying sex and 86% to increased contraception.

Edited, May 19th 2008 11:33pm by Jophiel

No. It's really not. I'm looking at the broad trend Joph.

You're making assumptions about *why* the education affects the end statistic. I'm not. Put more simply, we can nitpick the data, but we're really talking about the national policy, right? And whatever that policy was, it worked. While we can debate the specifics of AO education in particular situations, it's clear that the trend of adding more abstinence education was a good thing. I happen to agree with you that comprehensive education is likely the best way to go. However, due to the adversarial nature of our politics, often *any* abstinence is attacked as being "backwards".


I'm looking at the broader political perspective. A policy "position" has held sway in our public schools for the last 20 years or so. That policy has reversed the previous trend of increasing teen pregnancy rates. And yeah. That same policy happens to also include a focus on AO education. Does that mean we should replace all sex ed with AO? Absolutely not. But the existing policy is *not* the position of any one political group. You know that. It's the result of different ideas fighting each other. So just as it would be wrong for me to argue that we should make 100% of sex ed programs AO, it's *also* wrong for someone else to argue that we should eliminate AO entirely from all sex ed programs.


Which was really my original point. Again. I'm looking at the policy. I am not, and never have espoused the idea that if a little bit of something is good, then a whole lot must be better. In fact, I've argued against that bit of illogic many many times. So when I say something like "there certainly is evidence that the increase in AO education did reduce the rate of teen pregnancy", I'm not arguing that AO should be implemented everywhere. I'm not even looking at which teens didn't get pregnant. I'm looking at the impact of the policy. Nothing more...

Yeah, it really is.

Although if I had no clue what the answer was & was really vested in trying to prove I was right, I'd try to make excuses why it didn't matter as well.It used to be that sociology was just a bunch of sheep being led around and the data was the most important thing, EVAH! Now wanting to examine the data is "nitpicking" and we should really be talking about sociological issues like government policy.

So much for the importance of data, huh?

Edited, May 19th 2008 11:40pm by Jophiel