No effect

This is what a waste of money looks like:

That graph is Figure 1 in the final report, "Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs (.pdf)." Mathematica Policy Research summarizes their findings:

Findings indicate that youth in the program group were no more likely than control group youth to have abstained from sex and, among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age.

According to this study, kids who went through the program were no more or less likely to do anything. Put another way, it would be impossible to tell, based on behavior, whether a student had been through this program or not.

The program seems to have had no effect. Zero. The kids might as well have been in study hall. The good news, such as it is, is that it doesn't seem to have had any of the feared negative effects, either:

Contrary to concerns raised by some critics of the Title V, Section 510 abstinence funding, however, program group youth were no more likely to have engaged in unprotected sex than control group youth.

See Figure 2:

That's interesting. These kids didn't learn about safe sex in schools, but fortunately they learned about it somewhere -- from parents, peers, MTV or myspace. Considering the dismal ineffectiveness of the Title V, Section 510 programs, I think it might be worthwhile trying to figure out where it was that these kids learned what they weren't being taught in school. If you're looking for effective programs to emulate, that might be a good place to start.

Look at those graphs above and imagine you're an executive with Coke or Pepsi or some other peddler of fizzy sugar water. Imagine that over the past 10 years you'd spent roughly $1 billion on an advertising campaign only to receive a report like this one, showing your ads have had precisely no effect on their intended audience. You would, of course, stop wasting your time and money on this expensive and useless project and find some other strategy. You'd be a fool if you didn't.

This is why critics of abstinence programs think this report is the last nail in the coffin of this approach:

“This report should serve as the final verdict on the failure of the abstinence-only industry in this country,” said William Smith, vice president for public policy of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. ... “It shows, once again, that these programs fail miserably in actually helping young people behave more responsibly when it comes to their sexuality.”

Well, yes, it should serve as the final verdict, but it won't. Abstinence proponents aren't operating on the same rational basis as our hypothetical soda company. And, unlike a corporation investing in advertising, they're not spending their own money, so they're not terribly concerned if it's wasted.

The folks at Mathematica Policy Research are in the unenviable position of having been commissioned to conduct and report on scientific research for an audience that does not believe in scientific research. Their data and findings will be subjected to the same subjective dismissal as the data and findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This study may be conclusive, but its conclusions won't be accepted.

Comments

[Constantine]

Fred, the actual surveys to determine the program's effectiveness would be to see how much more strongly voters supported Republicans since the program's implementation. That's what these abstinence-only programs are for, after all. If it turns out that implementing abstinence-only programs in schools leads to greater support of Republicans in those school districts, then funding will continue.

[X]

How could they not believe the evidence of solid empirical study?

Here's an exercise in empathy for you: Tom Gilovich of Cornell University, along with Nobel prize winner Amos Tversky of Stanford produced a classic paper (link) showing that people's strong belief of the hot hand in basketball (if someone's made a few shots in a row they're "hot" and more likely to hit the next one) is wrong. They analyzed data from real NBA games, they got people to throw free throws for them and analyzed THAT data... Over time it's held up as a very well supported finding. BUT, try convincing any sports fan of this. Seriously. Find a liberal one, a conservative one, a libertarian one... find one trained in statistics, find one with three PhD's, people have this incredible stubborn resistance to it, because they KNOW that if you make a few shots, then you get more confident, and they KNOW that people have good days and bad days, and they KNOW... Well they don't know, but they have these strong internal theories that these things must be true, and so they oppose contradictory evidence absolutely and fervently. Just like the abstinance industry is going to oppose the Mathmatica report Fred describes above.

[cjmr]

Obviously I've got to go read the actual report, because based on what I've read about it so far, the conclusion I came to was that abstinence-only was no more AND no less effective than either 'conventional sex-ed' or no formal sex-ed at all.

[cjmr]

Although at 164 pages it may take me a while...

[cjmr's husband]

Read the Hilchos Xmas thing instead. It's way better than statistics.

[Drew Johnston]

I've actually heard supporters of abstinence-only sex ed argue that the results don't matter. These folks say that even if the statistics show no effect or even an overall negative effect, we should keep teaching abstinence-only because it's more "respectful" to the students (How lying to someone is "respectful" is beyond me) and because comprehensive sex ed will cause some other social ill, usually a high abortion rate or school violence. That fact that nothing confirms this is irrelevant.

It's the sort of mentality that causes someone to read a story about a kid shooting a classmate somewhere in the Midwest and decide that abortion/same-sex marriage/comprehensive sex ed/teaching evolution/whatever is to blame.

[Bugmaster]

It's the sort of mentality that causes someone to read a story about a kid shooting a classmate somewhere in the Midwest and decide that abortion/same-sex marriage/comprehensive sex ed/teaching evolution/whatever is to blame.

Don't be silly ! We all know it's videogames. Curse you, Pacman !

[X]

Actually violent video games and TV *do* increase aggression. It's actually a larger effect size than that of cigarettes in causing cancer if I recall right.

Oh, sorry, here i go with statistics and evidence again :)

[cjmr's husband]

All I know is that after my son plays Lego Star Wars for an hour he spends the next three days attacking things with a lightsaber.

I also know that right now I'd rather be playing pacman than doing my homework.

[Jeff]

Read the Hilchos Xmas thing instead.

One of my favorite jokes, which illustrates the difference among Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism, has to do with a "Blessing for a Christmas Tree". My wife has heard me tell others this joke many times, so I made her an art-piece with the Blessing in Hebrew and English. I can't remember the Hebrew but the English was

Blessed art Thou, Oh Lord Our God, Who has commanded us to decorate the Tree of Winter.

[hapax]

Our daughter was forced to go through this "abstinence only" program. We wanted to "opt her out" of the class, but she successfully pled that such a course would carry a dreadful social stigma. Instead, we had her bring home the paperwork each night, so we could show her the misleading anecdotes, statistical errors, out-of-context information, and outright lies they contain.

Of course (afaik) she has yet to become sexually active, but that's mainly because she thinks that boys are stupid, smelly, and totally ignorant of the Important Things In Life (astrophysics, swords, and shojo manga)

I've often thought that Dr Elders was absolutely right, and the single most effective way to reduce teen pregnancy and STDs would be to tutor kids in good masturbatory techniques. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm the right person to be teaching this to my daughter. (She does know where the sex ed books are kept, though....)

[cminus]

Jeff, it sounds like you know a different joke about the three rabbis and the Christmas tree than I do. (The one I know has a Jewish man with interfaith grandkids trying to get a rabbi to say a birkat kohanim for the kids' tree.)

[Erick Oppeen]

This culture is seriously twisted on the whole subject of teenagers and sex. Part of it, I think, is that we classify teenagers as children, and Americans were seriously hit with the whole "childhood=purity and innocence" thing that came in with the Victorians. Not too surprising, when you think about it---the whole "Victorian" thing was mainly a middle-class deal in the UK, and the US, then and now, is profoundly middle-class.

Teen pregnancy is Not A Good Thing, I'll admit, but there are steps that could be taken as a matter of routine. Like "Norplant in the arm, or no high school." The reason I chose Norplant is that it's "fire-and-forget," and doesn't rely on anybody remembering anything.

[the opoponax]

uh, no.

i'd much rather give teenage girls human rights than mandatory birth control. maybe that's just me, though. besides which, why not require all teenage guys to have reversible vasectomies done, or no high school?

personally, i'd especially be interested in much more statistical analysis. are we seeing way more teen pregnancies in Mississippi than in New York, or the Bronx more than Manhattan? and how does the sex ed curriculum correspond to that? what about other factors -- race, class, parents' economic status, access to health care, religion, type of housing, school transcripts, attendance rates? did the kid who fathered a child at 16 flunk health class last year? is he even showing up? did the 15 year old who got pregnant have crazyfundy parents who fed her a bunch of lies?

after doing that, we should be able to develop policies of dealing with the problem holistically. or if we prove conclusively that it doesn't matter what we do, and that teenage girls are going to get pregnant no matter what, (or that our analyses highlight factors we can't correct for) we need to develop a social infrastructure capable of handling teenage parents. the only reason it's bad for teenagers to have children right now is that our economy is structured such that supporting a child is really fucking difficult.

what if having a child didn't mean dropping out forever, and leaving school at 16-18 didn't completely wreck a person's entire lifetime prospects? what if high schools had daycare centers and parental leave options? what if all mothers enrolled in school full time were fully underwritten by a welfare/scholarship program. free food, diapers, childcare, clothes, toys, rent & bills if they're not residing with parents. for real, not just government cheese and a spot in the projects.

[Steve]

What's with the 42...is it Fred's birthday?

[X]

I'm not an expert in this area, but from what I do know, it seems that sex ed is a much smaller part of it than you'd think. Lets face it, when it comes to sex, the driving issue is rarely information, it's boredom, sensation seeking, social pressure, more social pressure, norms (among the teens, less so the rest of society), self efficacy (moreso in the girls), a sense that life has somewhere to go after this, a sense of invulnerability*, and suchlike. Oh yes, and alcohol use.

Can social factors change teen pregnancy rates? Of course they can. Some cultures have far more and some far less (tho it'd be near impossible to get it down to zero). Sex is just much too strong a motivator of people

Interesting side note, my sister used to have a Zimbabwean roommate who had this demographic map of Africa on her wall. The interestng thing about it my mom noticed was that the religion map lined up surprisingly well with the AIDS map... the Christian areas had lots more Aids than the muslim areas... Makse sense if you think about it. The Muslicm cultures go to much more extreme lengths to control women's sexuality, and keep them locked up till marriage. Not bad for the public health, it seems, if not so much on the freedom and liberation fronts.

* tho according to one thing I saw recently, it's not that kids think they are invulnerable, it's that they claim they just don't care if they do get hurt**.

** I'm thinking probably right up until they do get hurt.

[X]

Read the executive summary. There's no "normal sex ed" control group. Only abstinance programs or no-education controls. The only difference seem to be that the abstinance program kids appear very marginally better informed at identifying STD's by name (it's statistically sig, but only cos the sample size is enormous), are a bit less likely to think that pills do not prevent STD's (which is correct), but also less likely to think thing condoms help prevent various STD's (wrong with the exception of HPV).

So... all in all not the most interesting research ever done on the topic. Public health is a big and well financed enough field that I'm sure there are far better ones out there that understand this stuff much much better.

[ako]

"Norplant in the arm, or no high school."

So we radically increase home-schooling among girls. A whole bunch of parents with a religious objection to contraception, who might have been willing to only pull their girl out of sex-ed sessions is going to pull them out entirely, and have them home-schooled or sent to a suitably religious private school (if that would be allowed). And we get a bunch of teenage girls with no birth control, less chances to get accurate information on the subject, and and limited education, many of whom will have huge chunks of free time during the day.

This is supposed to reduce teen pregnancies?

[mel-anon]

What's with the 42...is it Fred's birthday?

Jackie Robinson Day would be my guess.

[Steve]

I think this should do the trick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_N7rv-iN8

[Steve]

Jackie Robinson Day would be my guess.

Ah yes, I should have caught that, as a life-long Dodger fan. Doh! My senses put Fred in his late 30's/early 40's, that's why I guessed that.

[X]

Oh Erik, put them all on birth control drugs? No no, why so timid? We should find a drug that would make them so pleasently happy enough that they wouldn't want to go out and have sex, or cause trouble, or be otherwise upity. We couldn't admit that we were putting everyone on any regular narcotics of course, it wouldn't be politic. But we could find anonther name for it. Maybe Soma perhaps.

[Bugmaster]

X, AFAIK, the studies of the videogame/violence connection have been inconclusive at best. It's unproven whether video games increase violence significantly more than any other intense activity does. What has been proven wrong, however, is that playing video games (even violent ones) automatically turns you into a crazed berserker whose mind is occupied with a single desire: to kill. I think Jack Valenti, and the occasional "slow news day" news anchors, are the only ones who still believe that.

[Bugmaster]

Is there really an epidemic of teen girl pregnancies ? Erick Oppeen and opo are suggesting extreme measures to combat the threat (ok, opo's measures are more expenisve than extreme), and X is fighting for freedom, but is there actually anything to fight ?

I'm not suggesting that there isn't, I'd just like to be absolutely certain before I commit to either side.

[Jesurgislac]

besides which, why not require all teenage guys to have reversible vasectomies done, or no high school?

D'oh! Because it's not important if a teenage guy gets a girl pregnant, but if a teenage girl gets pregnant she has to drop out and take care of the baby! Obvious, really, when you don't think about it!

Sex-ed classes in my high school (this *is* 25 years ago, more or less, so they may be better now...) were embarrassing, uninformative, and actually kind of dull. Then again, my parents had made sure we had access to age-appropriate books explaining how sex works in detail with pictures from age 2 or 3 (plus, never restricting our reading from home or library). I don't recall ever being as ignorant as the high school sex ed classes assumed you might be, and yet, I suppose some of the students there might have been, and the school was targetting the information to those most in need of it. But, no information about being GLBT was included: no STD information was included (this was pre-AIDS, but even so), no practical information about how to use a condom or a diaphragm was included: and I don't recollect that we were told anything as basic as "Yes, you can tell your doctor anything you like and s/he isn't allowed to tell your parents *anything* without your permission".

As I said, I hope things got better.

By 6th Year everyone at school was over 16, so 6th Year students got lectured about stuff it was now legal for us to do - including a visit from the Brook Advisory Centre doctor to talk explicitly about the kinds of contraception available, because as we were now over 16 it was now legal to admit that some of us were probably having sex. (It was still illegal to admit that some of the boys were having sex with each other. As I said: GLBT, not included.)

What did become apparent in a government survey about 8-10 years ago, was that the one thing that did definitely and consistently push down the teen pregnancy/STD rate, was if there was a Brook Advisory Centre in the area. Brook provides free and confidential medical advice to teens, and what most teenage kids (especially the under-16s) used it for was getting to go on the pill or pick up condom supplies. Apparently most teens were perfectly willing to use contraception when they had sex - if they had access. And while they could have gone to their local GP quite legally, most teens don't want to: at that age, they're extremely likely to be registered with the same one their parents use.

You'd think that the UK government would then have pushed funding for Brook in every population centre. But they didn't.

[Mabus]

Interesting tale, Jes.

Sex ed classes were about the same where I came from, in western Kentucky (lessee--somewhere around 15 years ago), except that there was a fair amount of detail on STDs. Though, IIRC, it was because the teachers mostly assumed that the students already knew the basics.

As it happened, I did, though not because my parents had bothered to tell me anything (or because I was sexually active--I wasn't). I'd already picked up the most basic stuff from a doctor's manual found somewhere when I was 6 or 7. Granted, I had a rather "Tab A-Slot B" concept of sex, but I continued to pick the rest up relatively early. I still don't know if my parents were too embarrassed, or if they correctly guessed that my reading habits had already filled me in. (One interesting side effect of "Tab A-Slot B"--when I first learned that there was such a thing as GLBT sex, my response was neither "Ick" nor "Big deal, so what?". It was "How the heck do they do that?")

Whether any of this is cause or effect that I'm still a virgin at 31, I have no idea.

[cjmr]

Read the executive summary. There's no "normal sex ed" control group. Only abstinance programs or no-education controls.

Ummm, no. Read farther than the executive summary. Specifically pdf pages 33-35.

These programs were sometimes in addition to NOT instead of the other health-related curriculum presented in the various schools studied. One of study groups had available to them "Mandatory family life curricula for grades K-12" with "units on abstinence and contraceptive use beginning in 5th grade". One of the study groups had a 6th grade curriculum that covered "STDs, abstinence, and drug and alcohol prevention" and "discussions of contraceptive use". I would classify those two control groups as 'normal sex ed' control groups, because they are typical of what is actually being offered in schools. And certainly the students in first of those two groups had received sex ed before the study period began and continued to receive sex ed after the abstinence program period was over and before the final surveys done, because the family life curricula was mandatory.

The remaining two study groups had little or no sex education offered at school outside of the abstinence study group. I'd call those 'no sex ed' control groups.

I've read up to the statistical analysis section so far, but I have to go find my statistics resources, because I'm having troubele remembering exactly what performing a two-tailed t-test entails.

(Stuff in double quotes is taken directly from the study.)

[cjmr's husband]

develop a social infrastructure capable of handling teenage parents

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

Now come up with a way to do that that Scott won't called "communism" and Jesurguslac won't call "oppression".

We've already tried "welfare" and "all girls must be married by age 18".

[Jesurgislac]

The Opoponax already suggested it:

what if having a child didn't mean dropping out forever, and leaving school at 16-18 didn't completely wreck a person's entire lifetime prospects? what if high schools had daycare centers and parental leave options? what if all mothers enrolled in school full time were fully underwritten by a welfare/scholarship program. free food, diapers, childcare, clothes, toys, rent & bills if they're not residing with parents. for real, not just government cheese and a spot in the projects.

Of course Scott will call that communism. Scott would call anything communism that didn't involve abandoning the baby on a hillside to stand on its own two feet.

[Hagsrus]

the Christian areas had lots more Aids than the muslim areas... Makes sense if you think about it. The Muslim cultures go to much more extreme lengths to control women's sexuality, and keep them locked up till marriage. Not bad for the public health

But they could easily be infected after marriage if the husband is promiscuous. Are there fewer (or healthier) prostitutes in the Muslim areas? Less resistance to condom use in such encounters? More chastity among the men in general? Some other factor that makes it less likely that the virus spreads among the general population?

[Hagsrus]

what if all mothers enrolled in school full time were fully underwritten by a welfare/scholarship program. free food, diapers, childcare, clothes, toys, rent & bills if they're not residing with parents. for real

And every girl who wants to leave home considers getting pregnant to collect these benefits? Would they continue after school age or would she and the baby then be on their own?

It would only seem fair to offer the equivalent to those who want to leave home without being pregnant.

[cjmr's husband]

And every girl who wants to leave home considers getting pregnant to collect these benefits?

They have that option now; it's just supplied by a (presumably abusive) husband, not the government.

[pedantic]

re: video games and violence

This was presented at the 2004 APS convention. Story is at

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=1616

"...the effects size for the relationship between media violence and subsequent aggression is larger than the effect size for many relationships that have prompted government action. These relationships include smoking and lung cancer, condom use and HIV prevention, asbestos exposure and cancer, amount of time spent on homework and grades, and calcium intake and bone mass.

According to Anderson , there are two take-home messages from media-violence research. First, “The scientific debate is over in this domain. It has actually been over among academic experts in the domain for quite some time. Violent media cause increases in aggressive and violent behavior. There is absolutely no doubt about that.” Second, “It is now time, in my view, for serious public policy debate about what to do.”

[Arturus]

besides which, why not require all teenage guys to have reversible vasectomies done, or no high school?

Best reason: Because there's currently no such thing as a reversible vasectomy. There is a surgery to reverse them, but unlike getting it in the first place, the reversal is expensive, invasive, and has fairly low success rates. Vasectomies are permanant sterilization, not temporary contraception.

Once something like RISUG (link, wiki) makes it to the market, then we'll talk.

And for the record, I would love for this to happen. Not the whole mandatory thing, that's still horrible, but right now male contraception is limited to condoms and sterilization. Not a good range of options.

[cjmr's husband]

Then there's that little detail that widespread vasectomies would be worse than nothing at preventing the spread of STDs.

[Bugmaster]

develop a social infrastructure capable of handling teenage parents

Ding ding ding, we have a winner. Now come up with a way to do that that Scott won't called "communism" and Jesurguslac won't call "oppression".

I'd also like to add "economically feasible", and "achievable, given our current society" to that list of requirements. That social infrastructure sounds like it would either be very expensive, or rely on an immense amount of donations and unpaid volunteers. Where would the money, and the workforce, come from -- especially given the fact that our country is almost bankrupt right now ?

Also, is the sky really falling ? Is there an epidemic of teenage pregnancies that is going critical as we speak ? I just want to be sure.

[cjmr's husband]

I think it's more that there is an epidemic of people that think teenage mothers are a problem. To them I'd just like to say:

Yes, it's difficult to be a teenage mother. If your god thinks it's such a horrible idea, why doesn't he increase the average age of fertility, instead of decreasing it?

And wasn't His mother an unmarried teenager? Granted, she found an understanding husband...

[Bugmaster]

The scientific debate is over in this domain. ... Violent media cause increases in aggressive and violent behavior.

Well, if the debate is over, why are people still (*) debating" ? More importantly, do videogames, and other violent media, increase violence significantly more than other day-to-day activities, such as playing football or driving in traffic ? In addition to increased violence, do videogames have any positive effects (f.ex., football builds muscles, presumably). Do these positive effects outweigh the negatives ? So far, I honestly don't know.

(*) Though I'll be the first to admit that Acheron's Call is kinda weak

[Bugmaster]

Yes, it's difficult to be a teenage mother. If your god thinks it's such a horrible idea, why doesn't he increase the average age of fertility, instead of decreasing it?

To test your faith. Duh. He's tricky like that.

[Constantine]

The Christian areas had lots more Aids than the muslim areas... Makes sense if you think about it. The Muslim cultures go to much more extreme lengths to control women's sexuality, and keep them locked up till marriage.

Also, most Muslims are circumcised, and circumcision has been shown to reduce the transmission rate of HIV.

[Bugmaster]

Forgot to mention: videogames are often portrayed not as factors in an overall increase of violence, but as bona-fide "murder simulators". I.e., if I play Doom for a week, I'm not merely more likely to punch someone; I'm 100% likely to go out, buy a shotgun, and start blowing people away -- and I'll be able to shoot perfectly, as well, because Doom has trained me to do so. Somehow, I don't think it's true (though the weaker claims might be).

[emjaybee]

"...it's boredom, sensation seeking, social pressure, more social pressure, norms (among the teens, less so the rest of society), self efficacy (moreso in the girls), a sense that life has somewhere to go after this, a sense of invulnerability*, and suchlike. Oh yes, and alcohol use."

And oh yeah...sexual pleasure and affection. Which teens are quite capable of feeling, just like adults! Imagine that! How shocking! Teen sex is not always dysfunctional; sometimes it is normal and even positive. But god forbid we ever admit that.

Teens are biological adults. With drives that may actually be stronger than many older adults have to deal with. Some of them will always find a way to follow this drive. It's in our best interest to understand this, stop freaking out about it, and give them the tools to not make that decision hurt them the rest of their lives.

Oh and circumcision only marginally cut HIV rates, Constantine. Have enough unprotected sex and it won't matter at all.

[Constantine]

Oh and circumcision only marginally cut HIV rates, Constantine. Have enough unprotected sex and it won't matter at all.

Perhaps so. The "low rates of HIV among muslims" would imply not only that Muslim women are being sheltered but also that Muslim men are somehow especially less likely to patronize prostitutes and have extramarital sex than Christians and those of other faiths in the area. I'd actually be somewhat impressed if this were the case.

[Jesurgislac]

Hagsrus: And every girl who wants to leave home considers getting pregnant to collect these benefits?

That's usually the standard reason for not helping teenage mothers, yes. Despite the fact that if you ask around, there is never any first hand account from someone who got pregnant deliberately to get benefits: the only account I've ever heard was second-hand from a social services worker who said it was the only instance she'd ever heard of, and the girl who did it was mentally disturbed. Nevertheless, kneejerk reflex: give teenage mothers help they can rely on, and the vultures will croak "Oh, they're just having babies to get benefits!"

[X]

BM,

Lurker is right, the scientific evidence on violence is quite clear, and the effect sizes are quite large. People are still debating this for similar reasons that people will debate the effectiveness of these abstinance programs even after all the data is in.

But let me disabuse you of a notion: It's not a 1 to 1 completely deterministic effect where every hour of exposure to media violence produces three new injuries and a body. Just like, you know, how you don't grown a new malignant tumor out of your neck every time you smoke a cigarette. If you want to think of it in role playing / computer gamish terms, being exposed to violent media adds a temporary modifier to your "tendency to violence" scores, and extended exposure adds something on to your "aggressiveness" stat. That doesn't mean you'll definitely kill someone, it just means you're more likely than you were before.

[Jeff Weskamp]

"Scott would call anything communism that didn't involve abandoning the baby on a hillside to stand on its own two feet."

Or pitching the baby off a cliff, like the Spartans did.

[hf]

Then of course there's this little matter.

[X]

CJMR

Good job with the heroic reading efforts. Two tailed tests are just the default way of running your stats. Without getting technical, sometimes people will argue that they can use a 1 tailed test, which is slightly easier to get significance on, but this is widely seen as a dodgy practice. The quick and dirty all you'd need to know is that t tests and ANOVA's are trying to peg differences between groups, and correlation and regression are trying to decide if continuous measures move together. The final interpretation of both is similar though.

Significant difference just means it's probably not due to chance... not necessarily that the difference is significant in the sense of "meaningful"... As David Lykken put it: "A significance test is like a license on a car; you have to have one before you drive to the APA convention, but only an idiot would invest in an old wrecker just because it has a valid license plate."

[hf]

Nice cross-post, Jeff. :)

As far as videogames go, obviously the solution is to smoke pot. Marijuana reduces activity in general.

Say, Fred? A blogger with a webcomic says that giving a single word as a captcha, every time, will stop spam. He also confirms that spam software can find its way around captchas if it 'cares' enough by the simple expedient of emailing people like him and directing them to solve captured captchas.

[hapax]

emjaybee: "Teens are biological adults."

Maybe, as far as reproduction goes. Certainly not as far as neurological functioning goes. Teenagers (young teens, not 18-19) simply do not having the brain equipment for long term decision making, emotional control, etc. That is why teenage parenting is, generally speaking, a bad idea for both teens and their children.

(Of course, this is presuming a sufficiently wealthy civilization in which people will have the luxury of expecting a long and fertile lifetime to produce offspring, that each offspring will survive to adulthood, and the technological means to engage in sexual activity without contraception. Lacking these, it makes sense to pop out as many babies as soon as possible. Our DNA couldn't care less if we are happy and fulfilled)

But this all begs the point. Abstinence-only proponents aren't at all interested in reducing teenage pregnancy, or STDs. They LIKE them. They feel that they are appropriate punishment for their real target: healthy, happy, pleasurable sexual activity (especially for females).

Really, you have got to read the materials provided. It's all aimed at girls, and it all carries a not so subtle message: Sex is BAD. Sex is ICKY. Sex HURTS. Sex will KILL YOU. Stay away from boys -- all they want is to force you into BAD NASTY ICKY PAINFUL DEADLY sex!!!