(I’m controlling for those who use both)

you know. So that these two DO NOT OVERLAP => the set containing both A (condom usage) and B (Pill usage) is a null set. So, who’s the math idiot now?

Nor am I talking about what should be happening, in reference to those stats, but what was happening. So your argument leaks worse than a sieve.

Thanks for proving your point? I wish you read my posts more clearly, chum.

Kong, you must have the will power of Hercules… 100% effectiveness of abstinence does not get you 100% reductions in teenage pregnancies. Join the real world.

Okay, so we’re both agreed that abstinence is the only 100% foolproof method of birth control. Cool.

As for willpower, I dunno. I’m a 28 y/o virgin. I didn’t even seriously try to have sex, though, that much is true. It’s not that hard.

But here’s the fundamental disconnect between our two approaches, I believe. I (and the other abstinence proponents) think we should be pushing abstinence as the PRIMARY, IDEAL and DEFAULT position for unmarried (pre-)adolescents. This is because it’s the ONLY 100% effective foolproof birth control method.

IIRC, your (and similar contraceptive proponents’) position is that since teens are ging to be engaging in sexual relations anyway, might as well give them all the options.

Where I break with the abstinence-only crowd is that I agree we should enlighten the adolescent group about the existence of contraceptives and their role in preventing pregnancies. However, I believe in providing them ALL the information, including, as I’ve mention, the pushing of abstinence as primary, ideal and default.

If you believe this position makes the most sense, then we are in agreement. Otherwise, we can continue this for quite some time.

Assume you have a population of 100,000 celebates with no access to birth control and 100,000 sexually actives with access to birth control, so we can test Kong’s theory that the abstention-only policy is better than the contraception policy. Taking his figures above, 53% of the celebate group abstain, while 47% have sex and a high percentage (80%?) have an unwanted pregnancy; this means that 53,000 will not have an unwanted pregnancy, while 37,600 will. Taking the sexually active group, 0.003% (0.1% times 3%) will have an unwanted pregnancy (or, to be consistent, 80% of this subset), while 99.997% will not; this means that 2.4 will have an unwanted pregnancy, while 99,997.6 will not. Note that I ignore those in the sexually active group that happen to remain celebate, so the number could be closer to 2.

The difference between my math and suek’s is that I assume that the sexually actives use both types of contraception since they are available. The problem with adding 30 and 1 is that you are talking about the same underlying population of 1,000–the question, I thought, was not a comparison of abstention vs. condoms vs. the pill–and should use the product of their failure rates if you are using both. You probably could also use the average of the two (geometric or arithmetic??) if you assume that only one method is available. I advocate access to all contraception forms and thus assumed that both could and would be used, but even if you take assume only condom access, you get 2,400 with unwanted pregnancies (100,000 * 3% * 80%) or only about 6% of the celebates group.

Of course, the best would be abstinence for the 53% and condom-plus-pill for the rest, which would give you 1.1 with an unwanted pregnancy per 100,000. That contraception takes you from 37,600 to 2 with unwanted pregnancies while abstinence added to contraception only takes you from 2 to 1 with unwanted pregnancies highlights which policy is more effective.

3% = 3 per hundred. 1000= 100×10 3 x 10 = 30.

.1% = 1 per 1000 ( 10 x .1 = 1% )
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31

dg…run through that math again, please?

Is he omniscient and thus an Obama godling or something?

Your reduction to absurdity argument, by the way, carries little explanatory power other than as a reflection of your own cognitive powers.

Ouch, you’re so smart!

And it has withstood very rigorous testing from other economists, sociologists and statisticians. I think it has more explanatory power than any other hypothesis I have read about.

How about a couple of sources. And I only want the very rigorous ones.
So studies that show it is due to better contreceptives and abstinence are all just hot air?

Your reduction to absurdity argument, by the way, carries little explanatory power other than as a reflection of your own cognitive powers.