Bill Maher had a great bit on this last Friday night. As Brian286 & the rest of the flat-earth society are dutifully carrying out the church’s prejuidices against women, gays and regarding birth control, I thought this especially relevant:
A study of 12,000 adolescents in the April Journal of Adolescent Health documents what sex education proponents have been saying for years: teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to take chances with other kinds of sex. The report by Yale and Columbia University researchers reveals that teens who pledge abstinence:
are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse;
are just as likely to have STDs as their non-abstinent peers;
if they’re boys and haven’t had intercourse, are 4 times more likely to have had anal sex;
are 6 times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge;
are less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience;
are less likely to get tested for STDs, or to know their STD status.
Kids who pledge abstinence are told that they’re bad if they have sex. Thus, they refuse to prepare for it, and are less equipped to cope with it or its aftermath. They are torn between the power of their sexual interests and the desire to be a good person (as defined by the abstinence curriculum). Lacking decision-making skills or real knowledge to lean on, they simplistically decide that non-intercourse sex isn’t sex.
“are 6 times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge”
I like this line. Just for consideration, maybe the teens who didn’t take the pledge but remained abstinent remained so because they couldn’t get any? Not a real surprise that they couldn’t get any oral either.
So, are you disagreeing with the results of the study? No? Then your post is simply deflection from the topic that ABSTINENCE is a crock of shit & (generally) doesn’t work and that the mandate of the church is foolish at best (given the times we live in) and statistically dangerous.
I’m not making judgements on this–the results speak for themselves. Or are you ok with your sons or daughters having a better chance of catching STDs due to plain ignorance?
I don’t see how this rises to level of a “study.” Obviously you are looking at completely different groups of people by dividing people into pledged groups and non pledged groups. The “study” obviously assumes the two groups are otherwise the same.
Try doing a “study” like that for the FDA and see how quickly you get thrown out of the office.
This study is meaningless. If it disagreed with your preconceived notions, you would have no problem whatever seeing the basic flaws.
What is it about the young generation that is so willing to accept “reality?” I am glad my parents generation didn’t accept “reality”, but, instead went ahead and defeated Germany and Japan. I am glad my generation didn’t accept “reality”, but, instead went ahead and defeated communism.
I hope this country and the rest of the world continue to produce leaders that choose to change reality rather than accept it.
What “realities” do you accept that keep you from being all you can be?
I don’t see how this rises to level of a “study.” Obviously you are looking at completely different groups of people by dividing people into pledged groups and non pledged groups. The “study” obviously assumes the two groups are otherwise the same.
Try doing a “study” like that for the FDA and see how quickly you get thrown out of the office.
This study is meaningless. If it disagreed with your preconceived notions, you would have no problem whatever seeing the basic flaws.
Art, you’re embarassing yourself… Did you miss the fact that this is a study published in a peer-reviewed medical journal? Did you actually read the study (of course you didn’t) Do you have concerns about specific confounders that weren’t addressed in the study (of course you don’t) You just saw something that disagreed with your notion that abstinence pledges are effective, and shot from the hip even though you dont know what you’re talking about.
I read about this study recently. It is foolish on its face, peer review not withstanding.
Actually, it never occured to me one way or the other whether abstinence pledges are effective or not. If I were to make a guess, it would be they were no more effective among those that took them than those that did not take them, but that the message behind the arguments on behalf of such a pledge would be effective even on those that didn’t sign up. I am just speculating here though.
I would disregard this “study” if it reached the opposite conclusion as well. The difference between us is that you would reject it then too.
I dont care if you read “about” this study. I asked if you actually read the study.
Why do feel you are the least bit qualified to comment on the validity of a study which was accepted into a peer-reviewed journal without, at bare minumum, having taken the time to read it?
I can reach a conclusion just from the first sentence of the description. 12,000 people were divided into two groups: one of which took an abstinence pledge and one that did not.
You immediately have two different groups with wildly different characteristics that will affect the outcome of the “study.” The two groups can not be followed so as to have statistically useful comparisons. The two groups would need to have all other things being equal for the results of the study to have meaning. That is clearly an impossibility.
If the results of the “study” showed how great the pledge worked, it would be you poking holes in it, correctly so.
The idea that kids are going to change behavior based upon being pressured into a pledge is kind of silly. The idea that kids regularly get exposed to the arguments in favor of such choices and encouraged to make the right choices, whether in the context of taking a pledge or not, is probably very useful.
So my guess would be that such a program would be very valuable, kind of like just say no to drugs, but the pledge itself would not be.
You immediately have two different groups with wildly different characteristics that will affect the outcome of the “study.” The two groups can not be followed so as to have statistically useful comparisons. The two groups would need to have all other things being equal for the results of the study to have meaning. That is clearly an impossibility.
What makes you assume that the other characteristics are “wildly” different?
Your second sentence makes no sense.
What specific variables are you worried about that you think might bias the results (Seriously, if you cant answer this question your objections are completely without merit)
If the results of the “study” showed how great the pledge worked, it would be you poking holes in it, correctly so.
If the study showed a big difference, the only objection I could think of would be that one might argue that kids who take a pledge are typically more religious than those who dont, and that it’s their religious upbringing rather than the pledge per se that accounts for the difference. Which isn’t exactly a scathing criticism…
The idea that kids are going to change behavior based upon being pressured into a pledge is kind of silly.
Who said anyone was pressured? It seems just as plausible that these kids decided to take the pledge were “regularly get exposed to the arguments in favor of such choices and encouraged to make the right choices”.
is there no means to make a temporary accomodation on some of the church’s teachings in order to deal with an existing health problem–i.e. the aids epidemic in africa. after said health problem has been contained/neutralized, wouldn’t it be more fruitful then to remove that temporary accomodation and begin changing society? i could see people being more receptive to church teachings at that point.
i know that the most important aspect of a religion is its objective truth to its adherents. with that said, however, isn’t there some concern that church policies that seem to exacerbate some problems(such as no contraception and the aids epidemic) would be deemed as uncaring/unfeeling to potential converts? i was under the impression that spreading the word(capital ‘w’) and increasing the number of followers was also a key component…
Any such “study” would have to assume that the characteristics of people who would take such a pledge would be the same as the characteristics who did not. I really can’t think of a way to get kids with completely different oulooks toward philosophy and sexuality than to divide them on such a basis.
There is no statistically useful basis of comparison because there is no control group. You simply have two different groups with no reason to think they are comparable.
I have no idea which way the bias would go. One guess would be that those that would sign the pledge are more likely to sign up to divert suspicion from anticipated sexual activity. Another guess would be that they would be either more or less likely to lie for the follow up.
If you do a real study, you divide people into two groups at random. Statistically, you can then be pretty certain you have two compariable groups. Then you can proceed with a test and compare the results meaningfully.
That approach is obviously impossible in this context. Dividing on the basis of signing a pledge is about as far from random as you can get.
I see you are back to drinking the right-wing Kool Aid. From the jist of your statements, I infer that your basic belief is this: if I don’t agree with the outcome, it can’t be right. You’ve officially joined the Brian286 camp in that you don’t seem to be thinking for yourself anymore. Too many hours listening to AM radio perhaps?
How about this: please present some type of scientific (at the same level that this was conducted (i.e. Ivy League University or so forth)–not some church sponsored B.S.) study that shows that abstinence pledges work and then we can have a rational discussion. Until then, you are simply blowing smoke out of your ass. Lets say the results of this study are off by 50%. Ok, so then if you have a teenage daughter that you are teaching abstinence, she is only twice as likely to take it in the ass & 3x as likely to give a hummer. Well done in the parenting department.
I must say, you right-wing religious kooks take three steps back for every step forward.
You just can’t keep personal shots out of discussions can you? I love your tolerance to others views.
Not when stupidity reigns. Nice deflection though. Yawn.
The “church” has had the same value system for centuries yet this current generation has suddenly decided that we are finally enlightened enough to change everything. I look at results of our relative values and see broken families, broken relationships, escalating depression, escalating teen suicides and in general, a very troubling country. The reasons for this may be many but it shows me that the “accepted” ways of doing things based on the current value of “do whatever makes you feel good” is not working.
Hmm, when over 70% of the country actively partakes or believes in some type of religion, don’t you think that maybe the odds are that the church is possibly teaching the wrong thing if things are such a mess? And if you look at the church’s history, I don’t think you’ll find that it’s “rulings” on scientific facts have been on the right side. Good thing the church & it’s minions are there to foster their beliefs on society as a whole.
**You are saying abstinence is outdated and doesn’t work given our current enlightenment on how the world should be. Why not just say it. **
Ok, the church’s teachings on this are full of shit. You can’t change human nature, much less teen nature. People have been having sex outside of wedlock for eons. Your church needs to deal with reality instead of living in a bubble. Can I make it any clearer?
I prefer to teach my children the benefits of abstinence.
Congrats, you’ve done (statiscally speaking) a fine job of ensuring they are adept at giving/receiving blowjobs, anal sex, and STDs. Well done. Keep on believing the teachings of a work of fiction. Then again it works for Scientologists, so why not the Catholic church?
As usual mopdahl, you have reading comprehension problems. I don’t have any evidence that abstinence pledges work, and I make extremely clear in my post above that I would be surprised if they were to work. Even you obviously think the study is garbage or you wouldn’t grant errors on the order of 50%
I do have a teenage daughter, and your comments about her being sodomized are beyond disgusting. You obviously have serious mental problems to verbalize a thought along those lines.
