Sometimes, when you’re discussing reality with progressives, it helps to have a study. Because although you might think that conservatism is common sense, they think that their feelings are common sense. So you will have to give them evidence, and then call them stupid, until they either accept your evidence or run away screaming back to the New York Times building.
Beginning with the 1966 Coleman Report, a long line of studies have found that students from intact, married families do better in school than those from disrupted or unmarried families.5 My own analysis of data from a longitudinal study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education (the ECLS-K) demonstrated the impact that family transitions, such as parental divorce and remarriage, have on students’ task persistence and eagerness to learn, emotional distress, and misbehavior resulting in school disciplinary actions such as suspension.6 IFS studies of trends in Arizona, Florida, and Ohio indicate that school districts tend to be more successful and safer when more of their families are headed by married parents.7
And there’s a graph to go with it. Actually, several, but I just chose this one.
Why can’t non-STEM sociologists use apostrophes properly? It’s As not A’s
And here’s the conclusion:
The analyses showed that schoolchildren who live with both married parents do better on each of the three educational progress indicators. Children from married-couple families did better even after controlling for socioeconomic and demographic correlates of family structure.
They’ve also got graphs for student misbehavior by family type, and student disciplined by family type. Naturally, the traditionally family far outperforms the alternatives.
Now the first thing that a progressive will tell you is that adding more money from government social programs will solve the problem, so we just need to have more communism, and give the children to strangers at earlier ages. But the study corrects for socioeconomic factors. And demographic factors, too. So that deflection isn’t going to work.
In previous posts on this blog, I have cited many other studies that show the unique importance of biological mothers and fathers to children’s development. Normally, progressives snatch the blog post out of my hands, tear it into little pieces, throw the little pieces into the air, and then stomp on them. While screaming “hate speech” continuously throughout. But I don’t really know of any other way to argue than to cite evidence. So we’re stuck, I guess. We’re stuck until we outlaw non-STEM degrees so that the only way to graduate college is by learning something useful like nursing or computer science. Then this crazy crying of “racism” and “sexism” and “homophobia” etc. at every piece of evidence will stop.
Yes, Karen, the rules of relationships really do apply to you. And speaking to the manager is not going to get you a “get out of the consequences of my reckless choices free” card. In point of fact, there is no such thing as a get out of the consequences of my reckless choices free card. You will just have to learn to make better decisions about who to have relationships with, and when to have sex with them. That is, if you care about your future children. My recommendation? Don’t choose tall hawt atheist bad boys with tattoos, piercings, violent tempers, and criminal records. Do choose men with STEM degrees who don’t drink, but who do read their Bibles and go to church. Things aren’t really complicated, as long as you make decisions with your brain instead of your intuitions.
In my last job, I had two interesting encounters, first with a secular Jewish leftist man and second with a New Age prosperity gospel feminist Christian woman.
So let’s talk about the two people.
The man who thinks that conservative Christians are stupid
The first kind of person who tried to shame me for being a Christian is the person who thinks that Christianity is stupid. This kind of person invokes things that he hears in secular leftist pop culture as if it is common knowledge that theism generally, and Christianity in particular, is false. He’s watched a documentary on the Discovery channel which said that the eternally oscillating cosmology was true. Or maybe he watched a documentary on the History Channel that said that Jesus never presented himself as God stepping into history. He presents these things that he reads in the New York Times, or sees on MSNBC or hears on NPR with the authority tone that Ben Carson might take when explaining modern medicine to a witch doctor.
Here is how things usually go with him:
Me: here are two arguments against naturalistic evolution, the origin of life and the Cambrian explosion.
Him: but you don’t believe in a young-Earth do you? I mean, you believe in evolution don’t you?
Me: let’s talk about how proteins and DNA is sequenced, and the sudden origin of Cambrian body plans
Him: (shouting) Do you believe in evolution? Do you believe in evolution?
And this:
Me: there hasn’t been any global warming for 18 years, and temperatures were warmer in the Medieval Warming Period
Him: but you don’t deny climate change, do you? everyone on NPR agrees that climate change is real
Me: let’s talk about the last 18 years of no warming, and the temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period
Him: (shouting) Do you believe in climate change? Do you believe in climate change?
He asks these questions so he can either label me as a nut, without having to weigh the evidence I’m presenting, or have me agree with him, without having to weigh the evidence I’m presenting. It’s all about ignoring the evidence, so he can get back to his busy, busy practical life – and get back to feeling smug about being smarter than others. I think a lot of men are like this – they don’t want to waste their valuable time studying, they just want to jump to the right conclusion, then get back to doing whatever they want – like running marathons, or driving their kids to hockey practice, etc.
So how do you respond to a man who gets his entire worldview from the culture, but never deals with peer-reviewed evidence? Well, I think you just defeat his arguments with evidence and then present your own (peer-reviewed) evidence, and then leave it at that. If the person just wants to jump to the conclusion that all the “smart” people hold to, without doing any of the work, then you can’t win. There are atheists out there who believe in the eternal oscillating universe they saw Carl Sagan talking about in their elementary school. You might try to argue for an origin of the universe by citing new evidence like the CMB and light element abundances. But sometimes, they won’t care. Carl Sagan said it 50 years ago, and that settles it. It doesn’t matter that the new evidence overturns the old theories, they don’t care.
Do you think that Christianity will make non-Christians like you?
1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
If you have orthodox theological beliefs in this day and age then you are going to be shamed, humiliated and reviled by people. And it’s not just having an orthodox view of who Jesus is that annoys them (e.g. – deity, exclusivity of salvation, morality, etc.). No, their disapproval spreads on into politics, especially abortion and gay marriage – basically any kind of rules around sexuality. That’s what’s really bugging these people, I think.
The woman who thinks Christianity is life-enhancement
This one is especially difficult when you are a young man, because we naturally look to women for approval and respect. You find yourself sitting in church or youth group, hoping for the approval and respect from the Christian women for your sound theology and effective apologetics. Little do you know that many Christian women understand Christianity as life-enhancement, designed to produce happy feelings. God is their cosmic butler whose main responsibility is to meet their needs and make their plans work out. Although you might be keen on sound theology and good apologetics arguments, she doesn’t think that’s important.
So how to deal with this unmet need for approval and respect from women in the church?
First thing, be careful that you don’t attend a church where the pastor in preaching and picking hymns that give you the idea that God is your cosmic butler. Second, read the Bible very carefully, and understand that with respect to God’s purposes for you in this world, your happiness is expendable. You cannot be looking to attractive Christian women that you happen to meet in church to support you, as many of them have long-since sold out to the culture. They are not interested in learning evidential apologetics to defend God’s reputation, or in defending the unborn, or in defending natural marriage, or in defending the free enterprise system that supports family autonomy from the state, etc. Those things are hard and unpopular, especially for those women who were raised to think that Christianity is about life enhancement and peer-approval.
1 This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.
4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.
5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.
4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
Or, since I like Ronald Speirs from Band of Brothers so much:
This is the situation in which we find ourselves, so get used to it. And believe me, I have to deal with this, too. So I have all the sympathy in the world for you. Resign yourself to the fact that no one is going to approve of you for being faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ; not secular men, not Christian women. There is no cavalry coming to rescue you.
Our best bet right now for slowing and stopping the pandemic
I keep having tabs open in my browser with all sorts of good news stories, so I decided to just dump some of them in this one post so I can finally close the browser tabs.
An international poll of more than 6,000 doctors finds that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine has been deemed the most highly rated treatment for the novel coronavirus.
The survey, conducted by Sermo, a global health care polling company, asked 6,227 physicians in 30 countries to find out what is the most effective against SARS-CoV-2. The poll finds that 37% of those treating patients suffering from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 rated hydroxychloroquine as the “most effective therapy” out of a list of 15 choices.
On Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave chloroquine and its derivative, hydroxychloroquine, emergency-use authorization, although many physicians were already using the drug.
Azithromycin, known by the brand name Zithromax or Z-Pak, came in as the second-most effective therapy at 32%, followed by “nothing.”
The study I looked at from Science Direct said that the best results are obtained by using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, which is (I think) what Trump had recommended earlier. In fact here’s an example story about a doctor who is using the combination of the two drugs:
An infectious disease doctor told Fox News on Wednesday night that using hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to treat patients that have the coronavirus was an “absolute game changer” and that it was “the beginning of the end of the pandemic.”
The model used by the White House to calculate infection and death rates is being revised downward – twice.
An influential prediction model, referenced routinely by White House coronavirus task for leader Dr. Deborah Birx, has been updated to reflect a major change in death and bed shortage projections, according to the Associated Press.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation University of Washington’s School of Medicine now says they’re COVID-19 projection model shows a sharp decline in anticipated deaths, anticipated bed shortages, and even anticipated infections — a change made as new data about the virus’ real-world spread becomes available and analysts are able to monitor epicenters, like New York City, in real time.
A model heavily relied upon by the White House task force responding to the China-originated novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, has again been updated.
On Sunday night, a model from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington dropped its estimated death projection for the first wave of the pandemic to 81,766 deaths, down from 93,531.
“The 11,765 fewer deaths would mark a 14% decrease for the model’s target projection, and a 30% decrease for the worst-case scenario,” The Daily Caller noted Monday.
Some countries are starting to scale back their quarantining and social distancing:
On Monday, Austria became the first European country to announce its plan to begin easing “lockdown” measures amid signs that it has made it through the worst stages of the initial wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Other European countries are reportedly beginning to look with hope toward taking similar steps.
Austria has experienced “three consecutive days in which the number of coronavirus recoveries have exceeded the number of new cases,” The Washington Post explains. “On Monday, Austrian authorities reported 241 new infections over previous 24 hours, but 465 recoveries.”
Things are going so well, that even the Democrats have taken notice.
As many as 4,000 people in New York are currently being treated with hydroxychloroquine, the New York Post reports:
A state Health Department official said the [Department of Health] has shipped doses of hydroxychloroquine to 56 hospitals across New York, distributing enough “to treat 4,000 patients to date.” Patients have received doses as part of four- or 10-day regimens, officials said. The University of Albany’s School of Public Health is observing the drug’s impact on the patients, and its preliminary study could come back in weeks instead of the usual months, officials said.
Cuomo has been criticized for prohibiting pharmacists from dispensing hydroxychloroquine outside a hospital.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Monday that the number of daily coronavirus deaths in his state has been “effectively flat for two days,” which he said may signal the pandemic is beginning to wane.
New York had 599 new deaths, up from 594 on Sunday but down from 630 on Saturday.
“While none of this is good news, the possible flattening of the curve is better than the increases that we have seen,” Cuomo said.
The governor also said the number of hospitalizations and intensive care admissions have also hit their lowest points in more than two weeks.
A Michigan state Democratic lawmaker who was suffering from the coronavirus credited President Donald Trump with saving her life, saying on Monday that his constant touting of hydroxychloroquine is what led her to ask her doctor for the malaria drug.
Rep. Karen Whitsett (Detroit) “said she started taking hydroxychloroquine on March 31, prescribed by her doctor, after both she and her husband sought treatment for a range of symptoms on March 18,” The Detroit Free Press reported. “‘It was less than two hours’ before she started to feel relief, said Whitsett, who had experienced shortness of breath, swollen lymph nodes, and what felt like a sinus infection.”
[O]n Jan. 31, the president declared coronavirus a U.S. public health emergency and issued a travel ban between the United States and China. Campaigning in Iowa that day, Biden criticized Trump’s China travel ban, saying, “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia.”
On Feb. 1, Biden again criticized Trump for the move.
[…]Presumed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden now backs restrictions on travel from China — two months after President Donald Trump put them into place to stem the spread of the coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China.
It took a few months, but the Democrats and their mainstream media allies are starting to credit Trump for taking the Wuhan virus seriously early on.
And of course the stock market was up 7.5% on Monday. I hope you bought the dip in March. I was out of the market since last summer when the markets crossed over the 52-week highs. I just got back in last month. So far, I’m up 10% in my portfolio, and my nerves are steady. It’s a risk I’m willing to take because the reward is worth it.
