I just finished reading a book that was given to me by a friend who thought I might enjoy it. The title of the book is Freakonomics and the authors, Steven D. Levitt (economist) and Stephen J. Dubner (writer), present their data on many topics from an economists point of view.He basically places himself selfishly into any set of rules and determines what the factors are that are most likely to be measurable and then looks for data that supports his theory. Sort of an anti-scientist.
I'm looking forward to future books where Steven can prove some of my life long theories correct. [ Sun screen is a hoax, Cholesterol is a hoax, Dental fillings are a hoax, .... ]
The book is rivoting...
Here is something to think about in terms of Natural Selection. Some of the most famous proponents of Natural Selection to date are Adolf Hitler ( to eliminate Jews ), Pharaoh ( to eliminate Moses ), Charles Darwin ( to eliminate defects [ anyone not like Darwin ] ), King Herod ( to eliminate Jesus the Christ ).
Freakonomics presents a very strong case that the United States has actually exceeded all of those proponents in terms of results starting with Roe Vs. Wade. By killing a statistically significant number of unwanted babies before they are born, we have very inefficiently eliminated a fraction of the violent criminals that would have existed. I don't recall the exact inefficiency that Steven stated but it was something like "for every 100 babies killed, we eliminate one violent criminal before he is born". The only reason that this had any impact on violent crime was because of the huge number of babies that were killed over many, many years.
Darwin would have been proud of the United States.
2 comments:
According to: http://www.cbrinfo.org/Resources/fastfacts.html
only about 2.6% of abortions annually are performed in the U.S.
Worldwide, we average about 1 abortion per woman.
So, it's hardly a US problem.
Good point. If your 2.6% figure is right and U.S has 4.5% of the world's population, abortion is twice as likely outside of the US.
Admittedly, there are other factors that have reduced the number of unwanted children in the US. Certainly, diseases have deterred some from having children before marriage, also there are many other ways of not having unwanted children today than there were before Roe v. Wade. All of them are factors that could be more significant than Roe v. Wade.
In Freakonomics, though, the author does point out similar and opposite trends in other countries. It is very hard to distinguish the cause from the effect.
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