Manufacturing dissent

Ezra Klein quotes from the American Sociological Association's statement on gay parents to contradict Scalia's statement that sociologists disagree about whether gays make good parents.  I think that he could go one further.  Scalia is probably taking Mark Regnerus's recent study as evidence of dissent within sociology.  Problems with Regnerus's study have been covered extensively, due to the e.g., defining gay parents as parents who have ever had a same-sex relationship, no matter how short-lived, as well as the conservative funding sources. The right comparison is obviously between children of stable same-sex and stable opposite-sex relationships, rather than between children of unstable same-sex and children of stable opposite-sex relationships. 

Scalia may hold a view common among conservatives that academic consensus derives more from liberal bias than from knowledge, so are only interested in findings contrary to liberal views.  Like many, I would call that cherry-picking, but conservatives seem to regard it as a necessary corrective.  It's a huge problem, and it's why there seems to be a red reality and a blue reality.

Two similar examples in my research areas:

Out of ~12 studies on virginity pledges, 2 find that pledges work, and those are the ones quoted by conservatives, especially because the first study found that pledges work (Bearman and Bruckner 2001 in American Journal of Sociology).  I reanalyzed B&B's data using better methods and found pledges didn't work. 

Out of hundreds or thousands of studies on condoms' effectiveness in preventing STIs, one prominent study (Zenilman 1995) found that people who reported condom use still got STIs.  Zenilman concluded that the subjects had over-reported their condom use; right-wingers said the study proved condoms don't work, which resulted in CDC being ordered to remove information about condoms from their website during the Bush administration. 

The biggest examples are global warming and Keynesian economics.  In red reality, the 0.3% of scientists who "don't believe" in global warming matter more than the 99.7% who do, and Scalia's discounting of the academic consensus on gay marriage is just the tip of the melting iceberg. 

Men's reproductive choices: children and rape

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A father discovers birth control, and wants to keep using it to limit his family size to five (five!).  His wife wants more children, but will please her husband by refraining from more children.  He goes to the rabbi, expressing anxiety about providing for more than five children, and the rabbi says that money comes from heaven.  When he lies, and says that his wife is stressed out with five children, the rabbi allows birth control.

I love how this story makes five children seem so natural, like a small number, when that's more children than most people would ever consider.

The idea that someone could not know about birth control is strange to me, and I wonder if he's exaggerated his story, or told it in a way that parallels the stories we've heard so often about women's constrained reproductive choices.  Chassidic men's lives are often more sheltered than chassidic women's, but are they really so sheltered not to know that most people in American society have fewer than 3 children?  He had access to the internet, so how could he have gone so long not knowing about birth control?  


Meanwhile, in evangelical 9th grade English teacher has an important piece on how she taught her students not to rape.  The classroom dynamic seemed to change from initial doubt that high school athletes close to their age could be rapists and that consent was always necessary, to a clear recognition of these facts among most in the class.   It's easy to speak about these issues in the abstract.  I'm so grateful that courageous teachers raise these issues again and again, when it's still possible to impact adolescents' thoughts.  I'm grateful that my teachers did. 

Financial difficulties in obtaining community college certificates

Credit:  CarbonNYC

Community colleges are famous for offering second chances to people who have had disadvantages and set-backs.  Community colleges have been the institution most responsible for expanding college access to disadvantaged youth, and today about a third of college students under age 25 are enrolled in community college.

Certificates seem to be more attainable than degrees because they require fewer credits while offering real job skills; I'm currently doing research on that topic.  The NY Times just published a story about how financial aid is often unavailable to students seeking non-degree certificates.

The story is comprehensive, and I won't rehash it here, but parts of it surprised me.  I knew that employers required certificates in many new areas where there was no tradition of training employees on the job, such as information technology.   I had not realized how many traditional jobs --- police officers, fire fighters, and machinists --- had stopped training employees and required potential employees to obtain certificates in advance.  These employers are not social service agencies, and it may make financial sense for them to cut costs by outsourcing employee training to an outside entity.  Until funding for certificate programs becomes available, the most disadvantaged people are prevented from entering these fields. 

The reason that the government doesn't offer financial aid for certificate programs is because of the presumption that certificates don't prepare students for jobs.  Now that we know that some certificate programs prepare people for good jobs --- some of which are higher paying than BAs --- we ought to give financial aid for the programs.  But which programs?  All programs?  Carnevale in this article suggests that, given our limited funds, funding should go to job-relevant certificates instead of to 4 year English bachelors degrees.  While sensible, that rule may not be practical to implement.   How could a bank or the federal government determine which credentials might lead to good jobs, and which ones will not?

Federal educational loan default rates are extremely low, under 10%.  The government may even make a small profit on its educational loan program.  The federal government could easily cover the cost of expanding its loan program to cover certificates, and provide information about certificates similar to what it publishes about degree programs.  Expanding federal financial aid to community college certificates would be a worthwhile investment in our country's human capital, and also help disadvantaged adolescents and young adults transition into the labor force.  

Researchers surprised that whole milk might be healthier than skim

My favorite milk lately.

A recently published study analyzing the ECLS-B dataset found that children who drink whole milk are less likely to be overweight than children who drink skim.  The researchers said that they were surprised by their finding, as they had expected the opposite, and several researchers poo-pooed the findings, suggesting that probably fat kids were put on low-fat milk, rather than vice-versa. 

Which surprised me, given how surprised researchers in a 2005 study were at a similar finding for children.  

I don't see what's so surprising.  A hundred years ago, a livestock fattening manual said, "Skim milk is one of the most valuable adjuncts of the farm for fattening swine" and that the results were particularly good when fed with cornmeal.  There's a prevalent view that a non-sugar cereal such as cornflakes with skim or low-fat milk is a healthy breakfast, but what if it's not?  

I've looked at milk choice in other nationally representative datasets, and I found milk choice heavily confounded by socioeconomic status.  That's what surprised me the most about this study, that the socioeconomic effects didn't overwhelm the effects of the milk.  The highest socioeconomic status groups are most likely to follow prevalent nutrition advice, but they're also likely to be much healthier, making it hard to tell whether the prevalent nutrition advice is counterproductive. 

When politics turn personal

A Republican senator now favors gay marriage because his son is gay.

He framed his reaction in terms of equality of opportunity: ""It allowed me to think of this issue from a new perspective, and that's of a Dad who loves his son a lot and wants him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have."

The story is similar to how one of the legislators who blocked a bill that would legalize abortion in Indiana later came to my grandfather (a pediatrician), asking for a referral to an illegal abortion for his 16 year old pregnant daughter.  Naturally this politician wanted to ensure that his daughter had the opportunities to succeed, in spite of any mistakes she may have made. 

Same-sex marriage is a wonderful example of where John Rawls' concept of the veil of ignorance applies:  we don't know whether our children will want to marry someone of the opposite sex or same sex, but we all want them to have the opportunity to marry.

About 3-5% of children of conservative politicians are likely to want to marry the same sex --- the same as in the general population --- so we may continue to see evolution like this on same-sex marriage.

It's too bad that conservative politicians are unlikely to have the same experiences for social policy.  Now that social mobility in the US is at a stand-still, the children born in the top quintile of income are likely to end up there themselves, and likewise for the bottom quintile.  Few policy makers make decisions informed by the personal experiences of people who are disadvantaged by the current system.  They are unlikely to know adults trying to support a household on minimum wage, and may truly believe that health and economic disparities are due to personal failings.

About 3-5% of the US population is gay, and aside from some predictors (e.g., having older brothers), gayness is more-or-less randomly assigned.  Not even 3% of children makers are randomly assigned to be socially disadvantaged.  If they were, we would have a situation paralleling Rawls's veil of ignorance, and we might have fewer social disparities.

Hooray for planning

Two years ago, in late March 2011, I gave a talk at the Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM) in Seattle and flew immediately afterwards to the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD) in Montreal.  The two conferences were always the same week, often across the country from each other.  SRCD is biannual, and alternates with a similar adolescent-specific conference (Society for Research on Adolescence, SRA.)  This year is no exception: the conferences are the same week in Seattle and Atlanta. 

Just noticed that next year the Society for Adolescent Medicine and Society for Research on Adolescence are still meeting during the same week, but finally holding their conferences in the same city.  It will be the 14th biannual SRA conference --- did it really take them 26 years to figure out this solution? 

Conservatives go soft on crime

photo credit: Chris Devers via photopin cc

For decades, liberals have said that the American criminal justice system is counter-productive.  Minorities and the poor are more likely to be arrested and convicted, and they are imprisoned for longer than comparable white-collar criminals.  The US's highly punitive criminal justice system stigmatizes already marginalized Americans, makes them unable to obtain legitimate employment, and further reduces their changes of social mobility.

My public health concern with prison --- beyond the obvious exposure to violence and disease in prison --- has been gender ratios: with 1/9 young black men incarcerated at any given time, and 1/3 of black men  in their life time, prison has reduced the number of marriageable black men, giving more leverage in the dating market among those remaining, and promoted the spread of HIV.  The increased practice of trying minors as adults has worsened the problem by sending adolescents to adult jails, where they are often victimized, traumatized, and permanently stigmatized. 

Conservatives have lead the charge towards these "tough on crime" policies.  Now some prominent conservatives including Grover Norquist seem to have just realized the enormous social and economic costs of this destructive and highly punitive approach.  The introduction of the article was promising because it noted all of the social and economic costs of prison, including the generations of unemployable men spit out by the prison system, but the authors seem more concerned with reducing the fiscal burden of imprisonment on states than the economic burden on society caused by the waste of human capital.  I was even more disappointed by the partisan slant of the article.  As if to make up for their almost liberal introduction, the authors claim that liberals are at fault, in opposite directions:  1960s liberals "ignored" crime and considered law-enforcement "pointless"; unions (prison guards) caused mass imprisonment; and Republican governors are leading innovation in reducing prison costs, although they did feature a policy by liberal state Hawaii.

The American Conservative has been refreshing in its relative lack of partisanship.  As happy as I was to see a conservative article noting the real problems with our punitive society --- and I am glad that we can all agree that this is a problem --- I was disappointed by its finger-pointing approach.  Many factors have led the US to imprison more of its citizens than any country in history, and it will take a great deal of effort --- including reducing partisan cheap-shots such as "soft on crime" labels --- to dig ourselves out of this hole.