# Tings Were Better In the Fifties, Vol. I: Teen Pregnancy (the SA debate series) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 2, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996 "2009-11-02T00:05:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/201 "2009-11-03T15:05:48Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > It’s the only sure way. Tell that to Mary. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/202 "2009-11-03T15:31:07Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > People correctly criticize **Starving Artist** ’s confident conclusion that because liberal attitudes rose just as other societal values fell, it proves that liberal attitudes _caused_ these declines. This is known as the fallacy of _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_: because B follows A, we conclude that A caused B. > > **kimstu** commits the same sin above. It’s true: the Dutch are more successful than Americans at avoiding negative consequences of teen sexuality. And it’s true that they have a much more liberal, permissive, tolerant attitude towards sexual activity than do Americans, in general. > > What’s not proven is the BECAUSE part. But you don’t need to prove that. If the statement to be proved is that liberal attitudes always lead to [bad things], and you have examples of where liberal attitudes exist and [same bad things] didn’t happen, you’ve already disproved the statement. Or, if you like, **If A Then B** is false where you have a case of **A** but not **B** (or, I suppose, **not B** ). Of course, real life is not so tidy and there are mitigating factors to consider - but then you’re already onto a whole different proposition. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/203 "2009-11-03T16:05:39Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And yet we have all these societal ills that did not exist 50 years ago. We have high teen pregnancy, abortion and out-of-wedlock birth rates; a drug problem so severe that almost no one knows anyone who hasn’t been touched by it in some way; an educational system graduating people to college who haven’t mastered the simplist standards of speech, spelling and grammar (and who knows about the other disciplines, these are just the most obvious); a pop culture that glamorizes drugs, shootings, thugs and thug life; and an ever-increasing number of people in society who feel free to act like beligerent, aggressive assholes because people are “freer now, which also means free to act like assholes if they want to,” as it was explained to me by one of the board’s liberal posters, and which to me leads to such things as road rage. Gosh damn. You’ve been shown teen pregnancy is not a new problem. The idea drug abuse wasnt a problem 50 years ago is hilarious, we’re just now having a thread about how people used to fight more often than they do now, and you deplore educational standards in a paragraph in which you misspell “simplest” and “belligerent.” And by the way, “road rage” is media hype. Roads are much, much safer than they used to be, anyway - in large part because people have, quite politely and civilly, I think, taken to driving drunk less often. That seems quite civil to me, far less antisocial than drivers used to be when they drove drunk all the time. There’s no way these threads are going to work if you’re involved in them. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/204 "2009-11-03T16:25:32Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > And yet I noticed you haven’t scolded **SA** in similar fashion for his endless citeless claims and encores in the very thread you opened to factually asses same. As I’ve said before, **SA** has already acknowledged that he rejects the proposition: he is not interested in debating. In the Pit thread, I told him that I thought GD was not the right forum for his posting style, but beyond that, it’s obvious my commentary would be falling on deaf ears. ---
**Author:** ![Dorothea\_Book](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Dorothea\_Book](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorothea_Book)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/205 "2009-11-03T16:26:58Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > … > Face it, **Starving Artist** : the Netherlands, in addition to having high literacy rates, a prosperous economy, extensive social welfare policies, pretty flowers and nice cheeses, are a pulsating mass of flagrant sexual liberalism and permissiveness. They’re doing everything you wish the American sixties liberals hadn’t done, and the result is that they have the lowest teen pregnancy and youth STD rates in the industrialized West, in addition to one of the lowest abortion rates. > > How come? Partly because these sex-saturated Dutch youth actually end up starting to have intercourse at a later age than teens in other countries, but mostly because [they’re using protection:](http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=407&Itemid=336) What a persuasive post, **kimstu**! The only thing I’d like to add is that I don’t see any reason to put _Cosmopolitan_ magazine and its ilk at the door of Liberalism. **Starving Artist** is conflating sexual explicitness and permissiveness (which one could perhaps call “liberal” in a broad cultural sense) with political liberalism–which is a different kettle of fish (so, for example, many liberal feminists urge young women to ignore magazines like _Cosmo_ or even come out against porn–in alliance with social conservatives). I have not noticed any Republicans come out against _Cosmopolitan_ magazine–in part because many Republicans (if not most) are ideologically wedded to non-interference with market. So that the fact that there’s an established mainstream market for sexually explicit commodities is not especially down to liberalism. It’s a fact of the market economy which both major parties pretty much accept as part of the status quo. Of course you could hypothesize that in the 1960s political liberals were more in favor of counterculture than Republicans. But even if one wants to insist that the _Cosmopolitan_ magazine we know today is the direct descendant of the 1960s counterculture (which I’d very much dispute), it doesn’t mean that we can hold political liberals today as prima facie endorsers of _Cosmo_ or any other sexually explicit commodity. On a completely different note: just for the heck of it I’ll add that I think **mhendo** has a real point about this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/206 "2009-11-03T16:33:17Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > That’s not the point, Bricker. Kimstu DOES prove that sexual liberalization does \*not \*lead to the specific “ills” that SA lays conclusively at its door. It’s not clear to me that **Starving Artist** ’s claim was that liberal attitudes ALWAYS lead to poor results in the teen pregnancy arena, or simply that they did in the case of the United States. To pick one alternative example, perhaps we could conclude that the speed at which the counterculture swept the land was the guilty party – the “preacher’s kid” phenomenon, where the problem is a formerly repressed culture suddenly given free reign reacts poorly, where a culture in which mores and restrictions eased gradually responds in a more restrained manner. But I’m not interested in retconning **SA** ’s theories to make them work. I am interested in tackling the subject with a fair degree of intellectual rigor, and claimng that anything was proved by the example offered is premature, since we have not yet settled on the precise claim (other than unwed teen pregnancy numbers themselves, which I think has been settled to everyone’s satisfaction). ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/207 "2009-11-03T16:38:12Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, but your cite doesn’t explain the methodology of the study, which means that I am unable to judge the details the same way you can judge mine and point out the subtle problems with conclusions. Dude, it’s not about the methodology, you twice misinterpreted the actual nature of both studies you posted about. \ ***Abstinence vs. nothing** \*and _ **abstinence vs. comprehensive, only on the subject of celibacy** _. Neither of those is on point to what we’re discussing. The real issue we’re talking about in this thread is abstinence vs. comprehensive in regards to teenage pregnancies. And I think you’ll find that comprehensive is the superior option when it comes to reducing teenage pregnancies. And it also lowers STDs. I think you’ll also find that abstinence is championed by social conservatives, while comprehensive is championed by sane people who aren’t blindly and self-destructively ideological. I keed, I keed, but the better option is the liberal one, not the social conservative fantasy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/208 "2009-11-03T18:47:35Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > People correctly criticize **Starving Artist** ’s confident conclusion that because liberal attitudes rose just as other societal values fell, it proves that liberal attitudes _caused_ these declines. This is known as the fallacy of _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_: because B follows A, we conclude that A caused B. I’m going to be busy for most of the day but I wanted to point out a couple of things before I do. Number one is that I haven’t just looked back and decided that liberal attitudes coincide with the rise of certain societal ills; I knew where they would lead; I watched as they led there; and I’m watching the result now. Perhaps you’ve concluded that I just looked back in retrospect and decided liberalism caused all these things because from time to time I ask people to explain how else they came into being, or because you’ve read one of **lissener’s** many assertions that that is what I’ve done. Secondly, I read in the other thread what you had to say about my repeating things and often with some ‘moving of goalposts’ while at it. I’m not sure what it is you’re referring to and I’d be happy to try to clarify it if you want to take the time to explain, but I can tell you that much of my repetition occurs for two reasons: one is that people say things that clearly indicate they haven’t read what I’ve said before regarding a particular issue and it becomes necessary to explain it again to them, and then there’s the case where someone seems either to deliberately or mistakenly interpret something I’ve said so I try to explain the answer in such a way as to address the misconception. This is where I think you see goalpost movement where none is intended. In my mind everything I’ve said is perfectly consistent. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/209 "2009-11-03T18:57:20Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Dude, it’s not about the methodology, you twice misinterpreted the actual nature of both studies you posted about. > > \ ***Abstinence vs. nothing** \*and _ **abstinence vs. comprehensive, only on the subject of celibacy** _. Neither of those is on point to what we’re discussing. No, no – I got that. I’m saying that I posted links to the actual studies, which allowed you to read the detailed descriptions of the studies and realize that the control group for one was “no education at all.” But the link in rebuttal was to a news story ABOUT the study, leaving it impossible to see how the groups in that one were broken out. > [@](#): > > The real issue we’re talking about in this thread is abstinence vs. comprehensive in regards to teenage pregnancies. And I think you’ll find that comprehensive is the superior option when it comes to reducing teenage pregnancies. And it also lowers STDs. Great. I may well indeed find that. But not without a link to the study that says it. > [@](#): > > I think you’ll also find that abstinence is championed by social conservatives, while comprehensive is championed by sane people who aren’t blindly and self-destructively ideological. > > I keed, I keed, but the better option is the liberal one, not the social conservative fantasy. Ad hominem, appeal to authority. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/210 "2009-11-03T19:04:53Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’m going to be busy for most of the day but I wanted to point out a couple of things before I do. Number one is that I haven’t just looked back and decided that liberal attitudes coincide with the rise of certain societal ills; I knew where they would lead; I watched as they led there; and I’m watching the result now. Perhaps you’ve concluded that I just looked back in retrospect and decided liberalism caused all these things because from time to time I ask people to explain how else they came into being, or because you’ve read one of **lissener’s** many assertions that that is what I’ve done. No. Regardless of how you formed your conclusions, you’ve used the _post hoc_ fallacy in an attempt to explain them to others. Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say that Christ came off His throne in Heaven and conclusively showed you an alternate world in which the counterculture revolution never happened and, sure enough, the various social ills you complain of now just never came to be. OK. Now how do you convince others of this truth? You cannot say, “Christ came down from Heaven to show me…” any more than you can do what you’ve been doing, which is saying, “I’ve seen with my own eyes…” These approaches are equally unconvincing to a neutral observer. I don’t care, in other words, how you came to be convinced. The question is: how will you convince your readers? > [@](#): > > Secondly, I read in the other thread what you had to say about my repeating things and often with some ‘moving of goalposts’ while at it. I’m not sure what it is you’re referring to and I’d be happy to try to clarify it if you want to take the time to explain, but I can tell you that much of my repetition occurs for two reasons: one is that people say things that clearly indicate they haven’t read what I’ve said before regarding a particular issue and it becomes necessary to explain it again to them, and then there’s the case where someone seems either to deliberately or mistakenly interpret something I’ve said so I try to explain the answer in such a way as to address the misconception. This is where I think you see goalpost movement where none is intended. In my mind everything I’ve said is perfectly consistent. One example: you have inveighed against teen pregnancy. But when pressed by the revelations in this thread, you’ve amended your claims to unwed teen pregnancy. You may now say, “Well, it should have been obvious…” but it wasn’t. And rather than take responsibility for a misunderstanding that you caused, you blame the listener for failing to understand your plain words meant something other than what they plainly said. I say these things with reluctance, because you’ve already signaled that you’re not really interested in debate, as such. But you asked. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/211 "2009-11-03T19:27:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > As I’ve said before, **SA** has already acknowledged that he rejects the proposition: he is not interested in debating. In the Pit thread, I told him that I thought GD was not the right forum for his posting style, but beyond that, it’s obvious my commentary would be falling on deaf ears. Okay, a couple more areas of clarification: One, I’m not always against debate. There can be times when I feel like debating an issue or a claim and when that happens I usually do so, though rarely in this forum. Two, I post in GD relatively rarely. Most of what you’ve seen me say has been in the Pit. Another thing you seem to misunderstand is that my posting ‘style’ is largely a reactive tit-for-tat style that developed out of the way I was spoken to whenever I took a position contrary to the board’s virtual group think, and in order to get my message out without endless cite demands over trivia which were nothing more that attempts to derail the discussion and often not even citeable items, and to counter the aggressive and never-ending complaints about conservatives and Republicans that goes on around here. Another reason is that when when you’re trying to contend with insults, erroneous accusations and mischaracterizations of what you’ve said coming from ten or twenty other posters at the same time it’s virtually impossible to ever get around to what it is you’re trying to say. So I decided to adopt the approach that I would just say what I had to say in no uncertain terms and let the chips fall where they may. That is an approach that has worked out well for me in terms of being able to say what I want to say without getting bogged down in verbal quicksand by people who don’t want me to say it. Now with regard to the harm liberalism has done and why I brought it up, even that was a reaction to the tremendous number of similarly aggressive and beligerent statements made around here about conservatives and Republicans. Finally the meme began to take hold that people had to be evil to begin with simply to _be_ conservatives or Republicans in the first place. I had been around here for approximately five years before I decided to bring all that up, and it wasn’t something I particularly cared to get involved in hashing out, but I felt it was high time that certain liberal posters had their feet held to the fire over the damage that liberalism has done and the lives lost or ruined as a result. Clearly that has pissed a lot of people off, and the ire and garbage thrown at me as a result has increased severalfold. But at least I’ve been able to get the message out. There are a lot of people who read these threads who don’t post. There are others who read them and only post in forums like MPSIMS or CS or GQ. It is these people I am trying to reach, and I’m trying to reach them in the hope that they will look at what I’ve said and make an honest attempt to take a look at what has happened in this country and decide for themselves what is right and what isn’t. I’m happy to let people make up their own mind once they’ve heard both sides. Most of the criticism and insults I’ve gotten in this thread and **lissener’s** are posters with whom there is longstanding animus dating back to the arguments in the days of ‘George Bush is teh suxxorr!’ and other politically-oriented threads of those days, and I’m not particularly concerned with what they think or in trying to get through to them. I simply want people (i.e., lurkers) to take an objective look at what I’ve said and make an honest attempt to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong and whether whatever positive changes have been made are worth the problems they’ve created. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/212 "2009-11-03T19:30:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Great. I may well indeed find that. But not without a link to the study that says it. [http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/pubs/EA2007SUM\_FINAL.pdf](http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/pubs/EA2007SUM_FINAL.pdf) - a meta-study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. > [@](#): > > Abstinence programs > > At present, there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence, or reduces the number of sexual partners. In addition, there is strong evidence from multiple randomized trials demonstrating that some abstinence programs chosen for evaluation because > they were believed to be promising actually had no impact on teen sexual behavior. That is, they did not delay the initiation of sex, increase the return to abstinence or decrease the number of sexual partners. At the same time, they did not > have a negative impact on the use of condoms or other contraceptives. In other words, as far as we can tell, abstinence-only programs have **no effect** on abstinence and use of contraception. > [@](#): > > Many of the abstinence programs improved teens’ values about abstinence or their intentions to abstain, but these improvements did not always endure and often did not translate into changes in behavior. The report doesn’t explain what “improved values about abstinence” are. Compare that to > [@](#): > > Comprehensive programs > > Two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavioral effects. Specifically, over 40 percent of the programs delayed the > initiation of sex, reduced the number of sexual partners, and increased condom or contraceptive use; almost 30 percent reduced the frequency of sex (including a return to abstinence); and more than 60 percent reduced unprotected sex. Furthermore, nearly 40 percent of the programs had positive effects on more than one of these behaviors. > > For example, some programs both delayed the initiation of sex and increased condom or other contraceptive use. and > [@](#): > > Virtually all of the comprehensive programs also had a positive impact on one or more factors affecting behavior. In particular, they improved factors such as knowledge about risks and consequences of pregnancy and STD; values and attitudes about having sex and using condoms or contraception; perception of peer norms about sex and contraception; confidence in the ability to say “no” to unwanted sex, to insist on using condoms or contraception, or to actually use condoms or contraception; intention to avoid sex or use contraception; and communication > with parents or other adults about these topics. In part by improving these factors, the programs changed behavior in desired directions. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/213 "2009-11-03T19:34:11Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, no – I got that. I’m saying that I posted links to the actual studies, which allowed you to read the detailed descriptions of the studies and realize that the control group for one was “no education at all.” Yes, but what you posted was completely irrelevant. My link is relevant and on top of that is cited. > [@](#): > > But the link in rebuttal was to a news story ABOUT the study, leaving it impossible to see how the groups in that one were broken out. I linked a PDF that wasn’t a news story, it was a cited _Policy Monograph_. Which admittedly isn’t the same as a journal article. > [@](#): > > Great. I may well indeed find that. But not without a link to the study that says it. Since you find what I put up unconvincing, how about an abstract from a peer reviewed journal: > **[Abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education and the initiation of sexual...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18346659/)** > > Teaching about contraception was not associated with increased risk of adolescent sexual activity or STD. Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education had a lower risk of pregnancy than adolescents who received abstinence-only or no sex... > [@](#): > > PURPOSE: The role that sex education plays in the initiation of sexual activity and risk of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) is controversial in the United States. Despite several systematic reviews, few epidemiologic evaluations of the effectiveness of these programs on a population level have been conducted. METHODS: Among never-married heterosexual adolescents, aged 15-19 years, who participated in Cycle 6 (2002) of the National Survey of Family Growth and reported on formal sex education received before their first sexual intercourse (n = 1719), we compared the sexual health risks of adolescents who received abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education to those of adolescents who received no formal sex education. Weighted multivariate logistic regression generated population-based estimates. RESULTS: Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education were significantly less likely to report teen pregnancy (OR(adj) = .4, 95% CI = .22- .69, p = .001) than those who received no formal sex education, whereas there was no significant effect of abstinence-only education (OR(adj) = .7, 95% CI = .38-1.45, p = .38). Abstinence-only education did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse (OR(adj) = .8, 95% CI = .51-1.31, p = .40), but comprehensive sex education was marginally associated with a lower likelihood of reporting having engaged in vaginal intercourse (OR(adj) = .7, 95% CI = .49-1.02, p = .06). Neither abstinence-only nor comprehensive sex education significantly reduced the likelihood of reported STD diagnoses (OR(adj) = 1.7, 95% CI = .57-34.76, p = .36 and OR(adj) = 1.8, 95% CI = .67-5.00, p = .24 respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Teaching about contraception was not associated with increased risk of adolescent sexual activity or STD. **Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education had a lower risk of pregnancy than adolescents who received abstinence-only or no sex education.** Emphasis mine. 😃 If the abstract isn’t good enough, maybe we can convince someone with access to look at the actual article. Not that I have the statistics chops necessary to evaluate it myself. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/214 "2009-11-03T19:35:43Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > … Dude, I’m gonna have to ask you to stop stealing my thunder. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/215 "2009-11-03T19:37:10Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Dude, I’m gonna have to ask you to stop stealing my thunder. > > 😃 Well, at least we didn’t post the same cites 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/216 "2009-11-03T19:55:24Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No. Regardless of how you formed your conclusions, you’ve used the _post hoc_ fallacy in an attempt to explain them to others. > > Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say that Christ came off His throne in Heaven and conclusively showed you an alternate world in which the counterculture revolution never happened and, sure enough, the various social ills you complain of now just never came to be. > > OK. Now how do you convince others of this truth? You cannot say, “Christ came down from Heaven to show me…” any more than you can do what you’ve been doing, which is saying, “I’ve seen with my own eyes…” These approaches are equally unconvincing to a neutral observer. > > I don’t care, in other words, how you came to be convinced. The question is: how will you convince your readers? The notion that my arguments always boil down to “I’ve seen it with my own eyes” is a largely a false meme picked up by my opponents around here to try discredit me and the points I raise. I don’t expect people to take my word for something simply because I said it, but I do operate on the assumption that readers who want to honestly come to the correct conclusion about the things I say will look into it themselves offboard. I have spoken many times about how things were documented then in books, news magazines, televsion news and entertainment programs and movies. There is plenty of information out there as to how hippiedom came into being, how people came to be living together and disdaining or disregarding marriage, how drugs have become such a problem, how single-parent homes have come into being and damage they cause, etc., etc., etc. It is pointless to try to furnish proof of this around here because no matter what a person says, there are twenty people with an emotionally vested interest in making sure the point doesn’t strike home, so I’m going with the assumption that people who really want to know will look into it from outside sources or view things as they happen with a little bit more skepticism and an eye to see if some what I’ve been saying is resonating in what they see. > [@Bricker](#): > > One example: you have inveighed against teen pregnancy. But when pressed by the revelations in this thread, you’ve amended your claims to unwed teen pregnancy. You may now say, “Well, it should have been obvious…” but it wasn’t. And rather than take responsibility for a misunderstanding that you caused, you blame the listener for failing to understand your plain words meant something other than what they plainly said. Well, pardon my saying so, but why wouldn’t unwed pregnancy be obvious? Why would I care or feel it’s damaging to society for someone who is married to get pregnant? When I first saw that someone had interjected married pregnancies into the thread I thought “here we go again; what the hell difference does it make?”. > [@Bricker](#): > > I say these things with reluctance, because you’ve already signaled that you’re not really interested in debate, as such. But you asked. I have no problem with discussion, which is pretty much what you and I are doing now. And now I have to leave as I have work to do. I’ll try to respond later if necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/217 "2009-11-03T20:26:49Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Well, pardon my saying so, but why wouldn’t unwed pregnancy be obvious? Why would I care or feel it’s damaging to society for someone who is married to get pregnant? When I first saw that someone had interjected married pregnancies into the thread I thought “here we go again; what the hell difference does it make?”. Even if that’s obvious, it’s not similarly obvious whether unwed conception or unwed birth is at issue in that case–and when close to 50% (IIRC) of the teen-mother births in the 1950s followed the scenario of “had sex, conceived, got married, gave birth”, it’s HIGHLY important because it changes the interpretation of the numbers dramatically. I would have assumed you were talking about unwed-at-conception when complaining about teen pregnancy, and that the aforementioned weddings were putting a band-aid on a net harm rather than transforming it into a neutral or good thing, the latter position being the one you seem to have taken. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/218 "2009-11-03T20:38:05Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Why would I care or feel it’s damaging to society for someone who is married to get pregnant? When I first saw that someone had interjected married pregnancies into the thread I thought “here we go again; what the hell difference does it make?”. Well, you yourself asserted back in post #118 that teen sexual activity is bad in and of itself: > [@Starving Artist](#): > > And secondarily to that, even though I haven’t brought it up as often, is my belief that sexual acitivity by youngish teens (13 to 17 or so) is a bad thing even when it doesn’t result in pregnancy or STDs. My belief is that people that age are not mature enough to deal emotionally with the complex emotional and libidinal soup that accompanies sexual activity. In other words, I believe that sexual activity itself is often harmful when engaged in at too young an age. If you believe that sexual activity among, e.g., 16- and 17-year-olds is a bad thing in itself, then I don’t see why you would consider that shoving wedding rings on the fingers of sexually active 16- and 17-year-olds who have the bad luck to get pregnant automatically makes their sexual activity okay. So your attempt to exclude “married pregnancies” among teens from the list of things you consider “damaging to society” doesn’t strike me as very consistent. The mere fact of legal marriage does not automatically make the contracting parties retroactively mature enough for responsible sexual behavior. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/219 "2009-11-03T21:35:51Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > At least in this one case. **Bricker** does have a point that we’d need more data to draw any reliable conclusions about **general** relationships between sexual permissiveness and outcomes of teen sexual behavior. No. SA has asserted there is a direct correlation: you only need one confirmed contradiction to prove his assertion incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/220 "2009-11-03T21:58:04Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > SA has asserted there is a direct correlation: you only need one confirmed contradiction to prove his assertion incorrect. Yes. But I think **Bricker** was moving on from the question “Can we disprove **SA** ’s assertion that liberal sexual mores necessarily produce bad outcomes for teen sexual behavior?”, which I think has been settled, to the question “Can we prove the contrary assertion, namely, that liberal sexual mores produce **improved** outcomes for teen sexual behavior?” So **Bricker** , what do you think of the cite I found addressing that issue in the post at the bottom of page 4 of the thread? (Can’t see the exact post number from here, sorry.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996.md?page=12)