Tag Archives: Research

News

New studies on promiscuity at Catholic colleges and cohabitation

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First, women at Catholic colleges. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Researchers from Mississippi State University looked at a survey of 1,000 college students nationwide and were surprised to find that “women attending colleges and universities affiliated with the Catholic Church are almost four times as likely to have participated in ‘hooking up’ compared to women at secular schools.  A “hook up” is defined as a casual physical encounter with a male student, without the expectation of an ongoing relationship.

[…]Overall, the study found clear differences in the sexual activity of Catholic students who attend weekly Mass.  Whereas 24 percent of Catholic women who attend Mass weekly have “hooked up” (compared to 38 percent of nonreligious students), the rate more than doubles to 50 percent of Catholic women who attend Mass infrequently — far more than their nonreligious peers.

[…]In the same journal issue, Calvin College professor Jonathan Hill reports on his study comparing the experiences of students at Catholic colleges, mainline Protestant colleges, and generally more fervent evangelical colleges.  Hill examines student attendance at religious services and finds a marked difference at the more conservative Protestant colleges, where religious convictions are shared and embraced by strong “moral communities.”

And then the study on cohabitation. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Dr. Pamela J. Smock, a research professor at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has published a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family of data gathered on cohabitation in the United States and the implications of cohabitation on relationship stability.

“From the perspective of many young adults, marrying without living together first seems quite foolish,” said Prof. Smock. “Just because some academic studies have shown that living together may increase the chance of divorce somewhat, young adults themselves don’t believe that.”

“Cohabitation is increasingly becoming the first co-residential union formed among young adults,” the study said. “As a result of the growing prevalence of cohabitation, the number of children born to unmarried cohabiting parents has also increased.”

[…]However, the study revealed that, with differences based on race and ethnicity taken into account, children born to cohabiting versus married parents have over five times the risk of experiencing their parents’ separation, showing an exponential increase in relationship failure for couples currently or ever cohabiting.

[…]The study concludes that couples who live together before they get married are less likely to stay married than those who don’t move in together until engagement or marriage.

The social costs of irresponsible and immoral choices about sex, marriage and parenting are $112 billion a year in the United States, charged to the taxpayers.

Those who make poor decisions about sex and marriage will often turn to taxpayer-funded social programs as a means of equalizing life outcomes with those who do not make poor decisions about sex and marriage. The net effect is that the frequency of responsible, moral choices about sex and marriage decreases as the benefits decline while the frequency of irresponsible, immoral choices about sex and marriage increases as the costs decline.

It’s true that many people can get away with making irresponsible and immoral decisions because they are wealthy and well-educated and can avoid many of the consequences. But what happens when ordinary working people start to take on ideas like hooking up and cohabiting? Does that help them to make ends meet? Does that help their children to succeed? Shouldn’t we be encouraging more sexual restraint and stronger marriages instead?

News

What kinds of predictions does intelligent design make?

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Here’s a post from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

Regarding testability, ID makes the following testable predictions:

(1) Natural structures will be found that contain many parts arranged in intricate patterns that perform a specific function (e.g. complex and specified information).
(2) Forms containing large amounts of novel information will appear in the fossil record suddenly and without similar precursors.
(3) Convergence will occur routinely. That is, genes and other functional parts will be re-used in different and unrelated organisms.
(4) Much so-called “junk DNA” will turn out to perform valuable functions.

In this regard, ID is falsifiable. When we test these predictions, ID passes those tests.

And here’s some detail on 3), because I’ve never talked about convergence on the blog:

Regarding prediction 3, similar parts have been found in organisms that even Darwinists see as separated by more closely related forms that do not contain the similar parts in question. Clear examples include genes controlling eye or limb growth in different organisms whose alleged common ancestors are not thought to have had such forms of eyes or limbs. For details, please see: A Primer on the Tree of Life.

An example would be where humans and octopi have the same kind of eyes, but they don’t share a common ancestor. So the designed “evolved” in two places independently. A simpler explanation that something so unlikely is that the two systems have a common designer.

The article lists several scientific areas where ID has explanatory power.

News

How green lobbyists shape energy policy in the Obama administration

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Story here at the Washington Times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

In 2008 and 2009, Mr. Obama told Americans on no fewer than eight occasions to “think about what’s happening in countries like Spain [and] Germany” to see his model for successful “green jobs” policies, and what we should expect here.

Some Spanish academics and experts on that country’s wind- and solar-energy policies and outcomes took Mr. Obama up on his invitation, revealing Spain’s policies to be economic and employment disasters. The political embarrassment to the administration was obvious, with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs asked about the Spanish study at a press conference, and the president hurriedly substituted Denmark for Spain in his stump speech.

Team Obama was not amused, and they decided to do something about it. The crew that campaigned on change pulled out the oldest plan in the book – attack the messenger. The U.S. government’s response to foreign academics, assessing the impact in their own country of that foreign government’s policies, was to come after them in a move that internal e-mails say was unprecedented. They also show it was coordinated with the lobbyists for “Big Wind” and the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP).

What emerged was an ideological hodgepodge of curious and unsupported claims published under the name of two young non-economist wind advocates. These taxpayer-funded employees offered green dogma in oddly strident terms and, along the way, a senior Obama political appointee may well have misled Congress.

[…]What is clear is that the Department of Energy then worked with Center for American Progress and the industry lobby AWEA to produce an attack that would serve all their interests.

First we had ClimateGate, and now we have WindLobbyGate.