Congratulations Slave and Catrin!!!

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Maybe you're reading better newspapers than I, but when this hit the wires two weeks ago, the ones I was reading definitely missed the point that the control group was equally religious and the study was looking at two groups, both of which were less sexually active than the average teen. I got the false impression that the study showed that pledging teens had sex at the same rate as all non-pledging teens. That's a much more salacious story, and that's the impression I got from the headlines I saw.

I got the same false impression from the news story I read. It was misleading not to mention that the comparison was between religious teens who pledge and don't pledge, thus leading to the assumption that it was between pledging teens (who are more likely to be religious) and all teens.

ETA: So apparently I have lousy reading comprehension.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Maybe you're reading better newspapers than I, but when this hit the wires two weeks ago, the ones I was reading definitely missed the point that the control group was equally religious and the study was looking at two groups, both of which were less sexually active than the average teen. I got the false impression that the study showed that pledging teens had sex at the same rate as all non-pledging teens. That's a much more salacious story, and that's the impression I got from the headlines I saw.

It is hard to take your guy's refutation too seriously when he says the pledgers have safer sex than non-pledgers (because they have fewer partners). Given that the reporting on the survey said that plegder are less
likely to use contraception, that seems like a highly doubtful claim. Which was the point of the articles I saw.

Here is part of the Post article, which both points out the fact that the study controlled for religious views and found differences in use of protection:

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking."

The study is the latest in a series that have raised questions about programs that focus on encouraging abstinence until marriage, including those that specifically ask students to publicly declare their intention to remain virgins. The new analysis, however, goes beyond earlier analyses by focusing on teens who had similar values about sex and other issues before they took a virginity pledge.

"Previous studies would compare a mixture of apples and oranges," Rosenbaum said. "I tried to pull out the apples and compare only the apples to other apples."

...

Although researchers have analyzed data from that survey before to examine abstinence education programs, the new study is the first to use a more stringent method to account for other factors that could influence the teens' behavior, such as their attitudes about sex before they took the pledge.

Rosenbaum focused on about 3,400 students who had not had sex or taken a virginity pledge in 1995. She compared 289 students who were 17 years old on average in 1996, when they took a virginity pledge, with 645 who did not take a pledge but were otherwise similar. She based that judgment on about 100 variables, including their attitudes and their parents' attitudes about sex and their perception of their friends' attitudes about sex and birth control.

link

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Fugee

I got the same false impression from the news story I read. It was misleading not to mention that the comparison was between religious teens who pledge and don't pledge, thus leading to the assumption that it was between pledging teens (who are more likely to be religious) and all teens.

While the impression may have been incorrect, if you want to test the effectiveness of the pledge, you probably should control for other factors, right?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Fugee

I got the same false impression from the news story I read. It was misleading not to mention that the comparison was between religious teens who pledge and don't pledge, thus leading to the assumption that it was between pledging teens (who are more likely to be religious) and all teens.

Ty has repeatedly said the WaPo sucks, and he's not entirely wrong. But the article I read and linked to, which, while having a misleading lede, explains by the 4th para the central feature of the study:

The new analysis, however, goes beyond earlier analyses by focusing on teens who had similar values about sex and other issues before they took a virginity pledge.



"Previous studies would compare a mixture of apples and oranges," Rosenbaum said. "I tried to pull out the apples and compare only the apples to other apples."

I do think he was comparing the wrong fruits, though. Cherries really are the ones to look at.

ETA: stp. Apparently Adder is among the posters who read newspapers carefully.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

I do think he was comparing the wrong fruits, though. Cherries really are the ones to look at.

ETA: stp. Apparently Adder is among the posters who read newspapers carefully.

While I wouldn't claim that generally, I did read carefully enough to notice the Rosenbaum is a she.

Out of curiousity (and boredom), I googled for a few other articles:

Something called christianitytoday.com spent several paragraphs on how this study controlled for pre-existing sexual views, highlighting it as an improvement over comparing pledgers against teens in general.

This one from cbsnews.com says that the study compared pledgers against non-pledgers who matched on 100 criteria, including pre-existing views.

cnn.com's second paragraph says that any delay in sex for pledgers likely comes from religious views rather than the pledge itself and fifth 'graph says they only compared kids with similar views.

This opinion piece from the Dallas Morning News Blog deserves criticism and does not present the results clearly.

This is obviously far from scientific, but I would guess that the news articles do okay on this, but the opinion pieces are a mess.

ETA: This one, a short blurb from what looks like a Texas tv station, takes the cake, claiming that teen who take the pledge are more likely to have sex.

EATA: This article from foxnews.com , which doesn't really explain what it means by comparing similar teens, apparently has the data underlying the Atticus's guy's "pledgers have fewer partners" claim: "Teens who took the pledge began having sex at the same age as non-pledgers, Rosenbaum said, although they had 0.1 fewer sex partners during the past year then their non-pledger counterparts."

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Sebby has time to IM dtb, but not to post here? What a dick. I hope I don't turn out like him.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

While the impression may have been incorrect, if you want to test the effectiveness of the pledge, you probably should control for other factors, right?

Why is the focus in these articles entirely on quantity? Doesn't anyone worry about quality anymore?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Fugee

I got the same false impression from the news story I read. It was misleading not to mention that the comparison was between religious teens who pledge and don't pledge, thus leading to the assumption that it was between pledging teens (who are more likely to be religious) and all teens.

wouldn't religious teens who do fuck be more likely to lie about that? Think about it.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Why is the focus in these articles entirely on quantity? Doesn't anyone worry about quality anymore?

Why spend all night trying to get the hot girl at the bar to go home with you when you can get two average ones right before closing time? It's all about volume. Just like the First Citywide Change Bank.

“We have been in this business a long time. With our experience, we're gonna have ideas for change combinations that probably haven't occurred to you. If you have a fifty-dollar bill, we can give you fifty singles. [ SUPER: "We can give you fifty singles" ] We can give you forty-nine singles and ten dimes. We can give you twenty-five twos. Come talk to us. [ SUPER: "We can give you twenty-five twos" ] We are not going to give you change that you don't want. If you come to us with a hundred-dollar bill, we're not going to give you two-thousand nickels.. [ SUPER: "We're not going to give you two thousand nickels" ] - unless that meets your particular change needs. We will give you.. the change.. equal to.. the amount of money.. that you want change for!"

[sunnybunny]

So, now that I'm boyfriendless (hi TM!), I need some advice, because I've forgotten how to do these things of properly using my feminine wiles and not revealing early on that I'm psycho. So, here's the question:

Bunny meets smoking hot guy who gets her all twitterpated in a way that is not normal, but I'm a little standoffish at first. Go on a couple dates and boy seems smitten (experience is that men fall in crush and out of crush faster than chicks) and then he has complete emotional break down and says he's not ready to date again-thought he was, but now is all anxious and stressed etc and needs to back off considerably but would like to keep talking etc etc...so I realize, once again that I'm a freak magnet. So, I've stayed in contact but he's been kinda doing just enough to stay in contact...I've been out of town a lot and we had made plans to take our dogs hiking next Saturday (not this) when I'm finally back in town on a weekend (been traveling on weekends for three weeks). So, here's the question. I've decided to leave him alone for a bit so that I'm not the one carrying the conversation....so, what to do about that Saturday? Do I contact him middle of next week to firm up plans or do I never contact him again and see if he tries to firm up the plans on his end. I'm really bad at being patient, but I think me being the initiator lately has not helped. Thoughts from my mean-spirited friends please.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Maybe you're reading better newspapers than I, but when this hit the wires two weeks ago, the ones I was reading definitely missed the point that the control group was equally religious and the study was looking at two groups, both of which were less sexually active than the average teen. I got the false impression that the study showed that pledging teens had sex at the same rate as all non-pledging teens. That's a much more salacious story, and that's the impression I got from the headlines I saw.

I thought that was the main point of the study -- that it looked at groups of teens who had similar attitudes towards sex, so that the key difference (assuming that the study was done well, and you can control for other factors, and so forth) was whether or not they took "the pledge."


eta: And then the study looked not only at rates of sex, but rates of condom use and so forth -- indicating that while taking the pledge (and the abstience-only education that accompanied it, I think) didn't reduce promiscuity, it sure did reduce safe-sex knowledge/practice.

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally Posted by sunnybunny

So, now that I'm boyfriendless (hi TM!), I need some advice, because I've forgotten how to do these things of properly using my feminine wiles and not revealing early on that I'm psycho. So, here's the question:

Bunny meets smoking hot guy who gets her all twitterpated in a way that is not normal, but I'm a little standoffish at first. Go on a couple dates and boy seems smitten (experience is that men fall in crush and out of crush faster than chicks) and then he has complete emotional break down and says he's not ready to date again-thought he was, but now is all anxious and stressed etc and needs to back off considerably but would like to keep talking etc etc...so I realize, once again that I'm a freak magnet. So, I've stayed in contact but he's been kinda doing just enough to stay in contact...I've been out of town a lot and we had made plans to take our dogs hiking next Saturday (not this) when I'm finally back in town on a weekend (been traveling on weekends for three weeks). So, here's the question. I've decided to leave him alone for a bit so that I'm not the one carrying the conversation....so, what to do about that Saturday? Do I contact him middle of next week to firm up plans or do I never contact him again and see if he tries to firm up the plans on his end. I'm really bad at being patient, but I think me being the initiator lately has not helped. Thoughts from my mean-spirited friends please.

[props up pillow, places bowl of popcorn on lap, makes sure beverage is in easy reach] Okay, I'm ready to be entertained/disgusted.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sunnybunny

So, now that I'm boyfriendless (hi TM!), I need some advice, because I've forgotten how to do these things of properly using my feminine wiles and not revealing early on that I'm psycho. So, here's the question:

Bunny meets smoking hot guy who gets her all twitterpated in a way that is not normal, but I'm a little standoffish at first. Go on a couple dates and boy seems smitten (experience is that men fall in crush and out of crush faster than chicks) and then he has complete emotional break down and says he's not ready to date again-thought he was, but now is all anxious and stressed etc and needs to back off considerably but would like to keep talking etc etc...so I realize, once again that I'm a freak magnet. So, I've stayed in contact but he's been kinda doing just enough to stay in contact...I've been out of town a lot and we had made plans to take our dogs hiking next Saturday (not this) when I'm finally back in town on a weekend (been traveling on weekends for three weeks). So, here's the question. I've decided to leave him alone for a bit so that I'm not the one carrying the conversation....so, what to do about that Saturday? Do I contact him middle of next week to firm up plans or do I never contact him again and see if he tries to firm up the plans on his end. I'm really bad at being patient, but I think me being the initiator lately has not helped. Thoughts from my mean-spirited friends please.

Why not give him a chance and see if he can act normal and you still like him?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Fugee

I got the same false impression from the news story I read. It was misleading not to mention that the comparison was between religious teens who pledge and don't pledge, thus leading to the assumption that it was between pledging teens (who are more likely to be religious) and all teens.

You could only have gotten that impression if you stopped reading at the first paragraph, as Adder's posts have shown.

Rather than starting with something like "teenagers who take the pledge are just as likely to have premarital sex...." (which incorrectly implies a comparison to all non-pledgers, an implication that is corrected further on), it should have started with something like "taking the 'pledge' does not appear to reduce likelihood of premarital sex, though it appears to negatively impact the use of condoms and other precautions against STDs and pregnancy" (which would have focused only on whether 'taking the pledge' made a difference in and of itself).

The article may have been poorly (or dramatically) written, but it wasn't misleading.

[sunnybunny]

That's what I've been trying to do by staying in contact with him, Ty....but he seems to be in some sort of a funk so i think maybe I should leave him alone.