Teen birth rate, deviations from the trend….

Posted on September 19, 2009 by David Hume

Below in the comments I noted that a “quick & dirty” check of the data yielded an r-squared of 0.14 for the proportion of teen birth rate variance on the state level by the percentage of the state’s population that is black. That is, the black percentage as a variable can explain 14% of the variance of teen birth rate (assuming a linear model). For Non-Hispanic whites the r-squared was 0.18. These are modest values, but I thought readers might be curious as to which states lay above and below the trend line. Below is the scatterplot of teen birth rate vs. % Non-Hispanic white by state. Continue reading →

Posted in data, Uncategorized | Tagged | 5 Comments

More old time religion, more teen births?

Posted on September 18, 2009 by David Hume

There’s a new paper out, Religiosity and teen birth rate in the United States, which describes the positive relationship between teen births and religious conservatism on the state level. How positive? Here’s the scatterplot:
Continue reading →

Posted in culture | 23 Comments

The great Irving Kristol

Posted on September 18, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Secular Right mourns the death of Irving Kristol and sends its heartfelt condolences to his family.  Kristol possessed a noble generosity and grace, not the least when cheerfully informing an interlocutor of his errors.  The irony, understatement, and cool detachment that characterized his brilliant essays are sadly lacking in much conservative discourse today.  

Irving Kristol maintained that religion was essential to a stable society.  Some of us at Secular Right have contested such a claim, but when a man of Kristol’s wisdom and insight argues for the necessity of religion, we disagree only with great trepidation and doubt.

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Choices in the non-best of all worlds

Posted on September 14, 2009 by David Hume

I was struck that Arnold Kling recently admitted:

My preference would be market-oriented health reform and the creation of real health insurance, which is bought by individuals and covers only insurable events (unexpected high expenses). But if it comes down to a choice, I’d rather have socialized health insurance with a robust private-sector job market than hang on to a private health insurance industry with a shriveled private-sector job market.

Of course, we could easily have health reform that keeps employer-provided health insurance and even makes matters worse. Odds are, that’s where we are headed.

Kling’s rank-order seems to be: Libertarian solution to healthcare > Socialist/welfare-state solution to healthcare > Current system and its descendants.

Is this a common sentiment among libertarians? That they would prefer the genuine socialism in healthcare to the current system? And how about liberals, would they prefer a genuinely libertarian solution to the current system? As I have noted before it seems that both the Left and the Right agree that the current system is not very good. As I note below even Republicans agree that there is a strong moral aspect in healthcare. If you ban discrimination against those with preexisting conditions then the incentive is to sign up for a low premium high deductible plan, and simply “upgrade” when you’d prefer a higher premium but lower deductible plan. Great market for consumers, if you can call it that….

Posted in politics | Tagged | 17 Comments

Preexisting conditions

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Democrats (and some Republicans) regularly bash health insurance companies for not covering preexisting conditions.  But isn’t that like expecting a home insurance company to write a policy for fire after your house has already burned down?  Health insurance seems to have become something other than real insurance—no longer a bet by both parties on an uncertain future catastrophe but simply a means for paying for a service that the insured is guaranteed to use.  Of course absolving insurance companies from paying for known serious chronic conditions throws us onto the public option, not a solution to be welcomed.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 36 Comments

Libertarian fanaticism or legislative fecklessness?

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Mr. Hume occasionally explores the relationship between being non-religious and being a libertarian.  If the failure to ban cell phone use while driving results from libertarian pressures, you can count me out as a member.  It is incomprehensible to me that we continue to allow people to drive a 6000-pound killing machine while talking on a cell phone, hands-free or not; the cognitive interference from engaging in conversation with an absent interlocutor is patent. Continue reading →

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The Commanding Heights

Posted on September 13, 2009 by David Hume

U.S. Is Finding Its Role in Business Hard to Unwind:

But one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers set off a series of federal interventions, the government is the nation’s biggest lender, insurer, automaker and guarantor against risk for investors large and small.

Between financial rescue missions and the economic stimulus program, government spending accounts for a bigger share of the nation’s economy — 26 percent — than at any time since World War II. The government is financing 9 out of 10 new mortgages in the United States. If you buy a car from General Motors, you are buying from a company that is 60 percent owned by the government.

If you take out a car loan or run up your credit card, the chances are good that the government is financing both your debt and that of your bank.

And if you buy life insurance from the American International Group, you will be buying from a company that is almost 80 percent federally owned.

Daniel Yergen will have to write a new introduction to his classic book, The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy. Rather that a story of victory, it now reads like the lost cause….

Posted in culture, economics, history, politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Metaphorical religion

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins have companion essays on the implications of evolution for religion in the Wall Street Journal.  I am not very familiar with Armstrong’s writings.  I tried her book on Islam and found it saccharine, and I know that supporters of traditional religious belief regard her tolerant relativism with deep suspicion.  Her argument here strikes me as so revisionist that it must grow out of some broader intellectual or ideological agenda of which I am unaware. 

Armstrong blames the 17th century scientific revolution for the belief in a literal God.  Until then, she claims, Christians were highly sophisticated consumers of religious myth, well-aware that

what we call “God” is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence.

It was Newton who made people think that God actually created the universe, Armstrong says, and set them up for unbearable anguish when evolution showed that “there is no Intelligence controlling the cosmos” and that “God had no direct hand” in making human beings (Armstrong’s addition of “direct” to “hand” here is  supremely disingenuous.  Did he have a hand in creation or not?) Continue reading →

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The Descent into the Ridiculous

Posted on September 12, 2009 by Andrew Stuttaford

Via the Daily Telegraph:

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin’s “struggle between faith and reason” as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia. However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as “a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder”. His “half-baked theory” directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to “atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering”, the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as “a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying”….

Hmmm. Not an encouraging story. However it’s important to be careful with reports like this. After all, Religulous found a distributor.

Perhaps those unamed US distributors simply thought that the film wouldn’t sell. Equally, I don’t know how “typical” that comment from a “US Christian website” really was.  I do know, however,  that describing evolution as “a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying” is a phrase that could prompt a rather obvious retort…

Posted in culture | Tagged | 17 Comments

The Big Lie

Posted on September 10, 2009 by David Hume

Am I the only one whose cynicism about politicians and the American public has been exhausted by the extent of the popular delusions and knowing falsehoods which are emerging during the whole “healthcare debate”? It is interesting to listen to liberal and conservative health policy specialists who aren’t too focused on partisan politics talk candidly about our healthcare system; they may disagree as to the solution, but they generally agree that our employer-based system burdened by state level regulations is totally sub-optimal. To be less prim it kind of sucks ass. In contrast, the politicians want to “reform” the system while keeping its rotten heart intact because the public is totally loss-averse.
Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged | 18 Comments