NYC schools dispensing morning-after pill

[AZMike 173]

Those of you who are baby boomers, or even younger, should hope that the U.S. fertility rate increases. Let me lay some demographic science on you.

 

The U.S. fertility rate is currently at its lowest point in 25 years - the fertility rate (the average # of births per woman) is 1.87. That's below replacement level, which is 2.1 (i.e., each parent has one birth to replace their inevitable death, plus a little left over to account for infant mortality), which mean's the country's population won't decrease over time. Once you fall below the replacement level, it takes generations to get back to where you want to be.

 

Once you get below the replacement point, the average age of your population begins to increase. There are some extreme burdens associated with this, aside from having more cranky old people who tie up the shopping line while arguing about how they should be able to use an expired coupon and their AARP membership card to get a discount on a piece of fruit, more old people who spend all their spare time tying up bandwidth by arguing about things on Internet forums, and more slow, very cautious drivers who will make BSA24 sit in traffic longer*

 

There are some short-term benefits - the government doesn't have to pay as much for schools, there are more women in the workforce so possibly greater productivity, there is more consumer spending as families have more disposable income.

 

But an older, smaller population increases the dependency ratio of the population, as the aging population becomes increasingly dependent and takes a greater share of government resources, or on their children (of whom there are less...). Currently, almost 75% of Americans who are nearing retirement age have less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts.

 

There are fewer people paying taxes to support the aging population.

 

Old people are on fixed incomes, so you have an increasingly large portion of the demographic that spends less money, which hurts the economy.

 

All those young childless couples wind up spending less money as well, and large sectors of our economy are supported by families, as larger families spend more on groceries, health care, home maintenance, household products, insurance and child care.

 

Older people are also less likely to take economic risks (understandably), so the rate of entrepreneurship declines with fewer young people, and there is less economic development and investment, fewer new jobs, fewer new developments, fewer new technologies.

 

There are fewer Boy Scouts, too. I tend to think children are a blessing, rather than a curse.

 

We've skated for awhile due to immigration, legal and otherwise, but that has some risks as well new immigrants often adopt the demographic birth patterns of their new country.

 

Personally, my family is well above the replacement rate. As a modest proposal, those who have provided children to support the aging generation should probably get more votes, as they have more invested in the future than others. Perhaps we should get to cast votes in our kids names until they turn 18 and can exercise their own franchise. Just sayin'.

 

I think a lot of the "there are too many people!" advocates are still stuck in a 1970s worldview, when Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" bestseller, and popular culture like "Soylent Green" and "Z.P.G." coincided nicely with society's increasingly "Me" centered focus which promoted the individual's lifestyle over their kids. Parents were (as a generality) increasingly less inclined to sacrifice for their kids, and more likely to divorce each other, creating what's been called "Generation D" - the children of the baby boomers who were increasingly also the children of divorce. This also began "Generation A", as the rate of abortion began to skyrocket, and many of that generation ended their life in plastic bags in a Planned Parenthood clinic's bio-waste bag.

 

 

*Due Disclosure: Yes, I am old.

 

 

[Sentinel947 1205]

So Packsaddle, are you or are you not proposing to get rid of Social Security? That is essentially what you are describing in my mind. The young be forced to support the elderly.

 

[Peregrinator 85]

There are fewer Boy Scouts, too

 

Indeed, I wonder how much the membership declines in scouting have to do with reduced fertility rates.

[BSA24 10]

> Encouraging birth control leads to abortion

 

That is one of those beliefs out there that people just keep on saying even though it is laughably wrong. In fact, I nominate this statement for poster child of why liberals think conservatives are uneducated in science. This one and the whole not believing in evolution thing are the things that liberals laugh at so hard that our beer spills and we fall out of our chairs. That's how hard we laugh.

 

Imagine an entire auditorium of scientists pointing at you and laughing so hard it hurts. That is the level this illogical sort of folksy stupid belief rises to.(This message has been edited by bsa24)

[packsaddle 753]

BSA24, believe it or not, there is a Russian play (1914), later published in English in 1922, and a film based on it (starring Lon Chaney in 1924). It has a scene in which a room of scientists are laughing at the protagonist scientist almost exactly as you describe. It's a beautiful story, though, with a romantic subplot reminiscent of Les Miserables. The title is, "He Who Gets Slapped" by Leonid Andreyev. One of my favorites of all time.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/1495/He-Who-Gets-Slapped-Movie-Clip-The-Act.html

 

Sentinel947, in order to restore a balanced budget and eliminate the national debt, I would terminate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid...all of them. What welfare that still existed I would devote to education and welfare for children and families with children. I would terminate ALL tax deductions and replace the system with the Fair Tax.

But that's just me. I know I'm in a tiny minority view.

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939 28]

BSA24,

If ignorance makes liberals laugh, however do they stop?

Or is it only the ignorance of others that is humorous?

 

http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/03/conservatives-dont-care-about-science-ne

 

Indeed, it does require an especially studious kind of ignorance to argue against evolution. However, reconciling oneself to this mundane reality doesn't necessarily impart any wisdom about the whys and hows of being... or of being among other beings.

 

One suspects that one's anti-evolution fellow conservatives resist accepting any knowledge that calls into question any of the foundational myths of their religious beliefs because these are closely connected to their metaphysical beliefs which tend either toward idealist monism or dualism.... the fear being that undermining these foundations leads to materialistic monism, an ontological position they don't see as compatible with free will or theism. Most of them wouldn't explain it quite this way though.

 

[Sentinel947 1205]

packsaddle, so what about all the elderly who already paid into the system. Are you sanctioning government controlled stealing? That is what it'd be if you don't repay those who already have paid into Social Security and don't get repaid for all the money they paid in.

[packsaddle 753]

Sentinel947, Social Security wasn't and isn't an investment plan. Those contributions were (are) to pay those who we, as a society, decide(d) to support. Most of them (us) receive far more than they (we) contribute(d) individually. At least to some small extent, it is welfare.

 

[Sentinel947 1205]

Reagardless, I think it is incredibly unfair to deny people benefits they were promised and their taxes were collected for. Even though I personally dislike the idea of Social Security and do not expect it to be around when I retire. (I'm 19).

[AZMike 173]

BSA24: > Encouraging birth control leads to abortion

 

That is one of those beliefs out there that people just keep on saying even though it is laughably wrong. In fact, I nominate this statement for poster child of why liberals think conservatives are uneducated in science. This one and the whole not believing in evolution thing are the things that liberals laugh at so hard that our beer spills and we fall out of our chairs. That's how hard we laugh.

 

Imagine an entire auditorium of scientists pointing at you and laughing so hard it hurts. That is the level this illogical sort of folksy stupid belief rises to."

 

There was a discussion after another thread got deleted because of the level of hostility about the importance of civility on this forum. Can I suggest, BSA24, that saying an audience of scientists would laugh at a belief expressed by a poster goes a little over the edge.

 

Especially when the claim you made is itself unscientific. (And I would note that the idea that you could get an auditorium of scientists to agree on ANYTHING, except maybe the need for increased government funding for research grants, is enough to make most scientists fall out of their chairs laughing at you.)

 

Most researchers have noted that abortion and contraception use rise concurrently in most populations, as abortion is needed as a back-up plan when contraception inevitably fails. Even an article (Relationships Between Contraception and Abortion: A Review of the Evidence by Cicely Marston and John Cleland, published in the (very pro-abortion and very pro-contraception) journal International Family Planning Perspectives (Volume 29, Number 1, March 2003) notes that in many population groups, including the United States, use of abortion and use of contraception rise concurrently. As the authors of the study state, "within particular populations, contraceptive prevalence and the incidence of induced abortion can and, indeed, often do rise in parallel, contrary to what one would expect." Scrambling for a reason to explain this (as they put it) "counterintuitive" trend is that rising fertility levels in a culture can outstrip the ability of contraceptives to terminate pregnancies. (you can read it here, BSA24: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2900603.html).

 

So your argument that "scientists" think that the idea that society encouraging or enabling birth control leads to abortion is specious, is itself pretty specious.

 

I also wonder about your statement that Peregrinator's claim could be a "poster child of why liberals think conservatives are uneducated in science. This one and the whole not believing in evolution thing are the things that liberals laugh at so hard that our beer spills and we fall out of our chairs. That's how hard we laugh."

 

Given the apparent inability of many (not all liberals) to understand the "dismal science" of economics, or simple math, I have to question your statement. As well as the many other instances of liberal reliance on junk science and scientific illiteracy to guide their political actions.

 

I ask you why the California Democratic Party supported Proposition 37, which would require genetically modified food to carry a warning label. The American Medical Association opposed it because there is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods. Every major scientific and regulatory agency -- including the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, the World Health Organization, EPA, FDA, and USDA -- recognizes the importance of genetic modification, and opposed Prop 37 - Yet, the California Democratic Party officially endorsed Proposition 37 -- in direct opposition to the recommendation of Americas finest doctors and in contradiction to the scientific consensus. The Republicans endorsed the pro-science position.

 

I ask you why so many prominent Democrats and liberal activists link vaccination with autism? They are certainly not the only ones, but why did Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., write articles for Salon and Rolling Stone that made such fallacious claims? Why does liberal celebrity Jenny McCarthy continue to argue the autism/vaccination link, despite it being completely debunked? Why did Obama say on the campaign trail in 2008 (long after it had been debunked in 2002) "Weve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that its connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it. Wrong-o. Well, he has problems with the science of geography as well, so perhaps we can excuse him. Except he continued to pander to the anti-science vote, once in office. In 2009, his FDA ordered a change from multi-dose to single-dose influenza vaccines because they contained less thimerosal -- the preservative that anti-vaccine activists wrongly believed causes autism. According to Scott Gottlieb, a former deputy commissioner of the FDA, this last minute switch was partially to blame for the vaccine shortages which occurred later that year. Gosh, it's a good thing liberals are so pro-science. It wasn't like Obama didn't believe in evolution, which could have caused - I don't know, something or other just as bad as a vaccine shortage. Why has John Kerry claimed that vaccination causes autism? Why do non-vaccination rates tend to be higher in politically liberal counties that voted for Barack Obama in 2008? Why are the states with the highest rates of vaccine refusal for kindergarteners Washington, Vermont and Oregon three of the most progressive states in the country?

 

Let's say an American conservative doesn't believe in the conception of evolution as he and as most liberals, mistakenly understand it. So what? Does his belief hurt us in some way? Does it hurt children in the same way that a liberal helicopter mom's unwillingness to vaccinate her child does?

 

I ask you why liberals support medical marijuana laws when the science clearly shows that already legal THC alternatives such as marinol are safer than non-FDA regulated pot?

 

I ask you why so many liberals oppose nuclear power? 70% of scientists favor nuclear power (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-09-science-survey_N.htm), and it would have a positive impact against global warming.

 

I ask you why so many liberals oppose animal research and testing (It would be hard to claim that PETA is anything other than a liberal organization), despite 93% of scientists favoring animal research.

 

I ask you why so many liberals oppose social research findings that oppose their preconceptions - such as the recent study that found children raised by homosexual parents experience a variety of negative effects, which caused a huge liberal response, despite a finding that the study contained no methodological bias.

 

I ask you why liberals insist that life does not begin at conception, when EVERY medical, obstetric, and scientific textbook stated that life began at conception, until Roe v. Wade - a purely political pretense.

 

I ask you why the 1965 research of Daniel Patrick Moynihan on the negative social effects of welfare dependency and out-of-wedlock births on the African-American community was derided by (mostly white) liberals, even as it has become the accepted wisdom now.

 

I ask you why any social research that affects liberal views on differences in gender, ethnicity, class, or sexual preference is automatically derided as unscientific? Why was Larry Summers forced to resign as president of Harvard when he wondered out loud whether the preponderance of male professors in some top math and science departments might be due partly to the larger variance in I.Q. scores among men (meaning there are more men at the very high and very low ends). As this view did not support the liberal piety that women's lack of achievement in some fields could only be seen as due to victimization by a male hierarchy, Summers was ostracized. Was that... scientific?

 

I ask you if the liberal obsession with the "scientific" imperative to improve the human species through forced sterilization during the Eugenics movement of the 1920s and 1930s was really...scientific? How scientific were liberal icons like H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw?

 

I ask you how many of the non-scientific humbugs of the American population can be said to be specifically conservative? If I look at the really crackpot ideas - Holocaust denial, the 9/11 "Truther" movement, the denial that we landed on the moon, alien abductions and secret bases under Roswell and Area 51, as well as the New Age nonsense of mediums, astrology, crystal worship, reincarnation, and what have you...you will find at least an equal mix of right and left wingers in there, and if you are honest, you will admit that there are a lot more liberals than conservatives in most of those fields.

 

If you ask any of your liberal acquaintances, you will probably find that a majority hold at least one non-scientfic, disproven belief, such as that Vitamin C cures a cold, that America is overpopulated, that value derives from labor, etc.

 

Now, you might notice, BSA24, that most of these anti-scientifiic obsessions of liberals have an actual real-world effect on people's lives, certainly much more so than a disbelief in the popular conception of what evolution is. How much does it really affect the body politic if someone believes in a biblically literal view of creation? Not much. A belief that all conservatives are back-slapping rubes who believe the universe was created 6000 years ago is an intellectually lazy way for liberals to convince themselves they are part of an elite. In fact, research reflects that the most conservative of Protestants those who identify with a conservative Protestant denomination, attend church regularly and take the Bible literally, or about 11% of the population,s are equally likely to understand scientific methods, to know scientific facts and to claim knowledge of science as a group that denied any belief in God. They are as likely as the nonreligious to have majored in science or to have a scientific occupation. While other studies have shown that the elite scientists who work at the 20 top research universities are less religious than the public, it appears that the vast majority of people with workaday scientific occupations are like their neighbors, religiously speaking.

 

I said earlier that conservatives, like liberals, misunderstand a popular conception of what evolution is. That's probably because both groups have a poor understanding of the theory, as well as its limitations. For many liberals, "evolution" is used to advance a lazy naturalistic philosophical prejudice, which uses evolution as a tool to deny any metaphysical origin for the universe, life, or consciousness. To make this assertion is to go quite beyond the boundaries of science and into the realm of metaphysics, about which science has nothing to say.

 

I guess you could say that I am a "Creationist," inasmuch as, like about 93% of the population, I believe in God, and thus, believe that He created our universe, life, and the human soul. Like most Catholics, I am not a biblical literalist (as Church father St. Augustine suggested about 400 A.D., a literal reading of the Old Testament is not necessary to appreciate its truthfulness), and believe that evolution could be one of many physical processes that God could have used to direct the nature of species, in the same way that volcanism and erosion shape the physical world. I believe that specific events - the creation of the universe, the creation of life, and the creation of the human soul - were distinct and extraordinary events where God directly intervened in our universe. Neither scripture nor science dispute these views. 32% of Americans hold this view, according to Gallup (http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx), compared to 46% who believe that God created humans in their present form and the 15% who believe that humans evolve and God had no part in the process.

 

These views are not unusual among the religious, nor among scientists who are religious (then and now). People's view of God's involvement in the course of natural history are nuanced, and the idea that because people of faith (i.e., the vast majority of Americans) have views at variance with a strictly materialist view of reality is not a cause for abuse.

 

What is a very unscientific view (i.e., not supported by the research) is that only Republicans don't believe in evolution. In fact, a substantial number of of Democrats (40%) (who I think would count as liberals, BSA24) DON'T believe in evolution, per Gallup: http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/majority-republicans-doubt-theory-evolution.aspx) Are those 40% of your liberal brethren ignorant rubes and hicks?

 

How many of them voted for Obama?

 

Also, maybe you shouldn't be drinking so much beer that you fall out of your chair when you laugh, BSA24. Just sayin'.(This message has been edited by AZMike)

[packsaddle 753]

Sentinel947, I suppose I'll receive Social Security in a few years. I too will likely receive far more than I contributed. But I long ago 'made peace' with the understanding that my contributions were in order to help the previous generation in their later years, NOT as an investment for myself. I have no expectation that anyone owes me anything for those contributions. Anyway, that was a decision that we as a society made long before I was born. But today Social Secutity, along especially with Medicare and Medicaid, are unsustainable.

I promote ending all of them as an extreme position from which we are free to 'back away' to the degree we see fit: perhaps a means test, or removing the income cap, or other measures. But 'the math', sooner or later, is going to exact it's reality. I'd rather face that inevitability and those consequences myself, along with my generation, rather than pass that fate to you and other young persons.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[AZMike 173]

packsaddle: "BSA24, believe it or not, there is a Russian play (1914), later published in English in 1922, and a film based on it (starring Lon Chaney in 1924). It has a scene in which a room of scientists are laughing at the protagonist scientist almost exactly as you describe. It's a beautiful story, though, with a romantic subplot reminiscent of Les Miserables. The title is, "He Who Gets Slapped" by Leonid Andreyev. One of my favorites of all time."

 

I'm a huge Lon Chaney, Sr. fan, Packsaddle, and am familiar with that film, but when I read what BSA24 wrote my first thought was about the scene in "Young Frankenstein" when the auditorium full of scientists threw tomatoes at Gene Wilder and his monster after they finished singing "Puttin' on the Ritz" in "Young Frankenstein."

[packsaddle 753]

Young Frankenstein...now that you mention it, you're right, I see it too. That film was a heck of a lot of fun.

The first time I saw "He" was during late night movie classics series, back in the 70s. I have thought about that plot often over the years...seen elements of it all around me in real life. Well, not the revenge part, thankfully, lol. I picked up a copy of the written play a few years later. I read it every once in a while. Helps maintain a healthy perspective.

[AZMike 173]

I read Andreyev's "Satan's Diary" back in college and enjoyed it, I'll have to look up a copy of the print version of "He Who Gets Slapped."

 

I just rewatched Chaney's "Phantom of the Opera" with my daughter last night on Netflix, after she saw the film version of the broadway play with Gerard Butler. It's been years since I saw it, but was surprised at how many elements of the play were taken from the Chaney film (maybe they were in the Leroux novel as well, it's been even longer since I read that.)

[packsaddle 753]

I just checked. You can get a copy for less than $10, including shipping, on bookfinder.com. That site is like the eBay of old books. I have used it a lot.

But I missed Satan's Diary and now I'm intrigued. Back to bookfinder.....

"Good words to you."