Why Media and Studies Don't Mix

On their own, research studies are a valuable tool in advancing the sciences.

In the hands of media, studies are a very awkward club to wield in advancing a particular ideological agenda. (Sometimes, the researcher being an apparatchik himself doesn't make things much different.)

As a case in point, there's this news story going around that a study had just proved that abstinence pledges don't work. The gist is that the study supposedly says that teens who take abstinence pledges are just as likely to engage in premarital sex as their peers, but less likely to use condoms or others forms of "protection" in the process.

Of course, the running story in the background is the accusation that abstinence education doesn't work.

First, let's look at the particulars, then the running story.

The study itself has myriad flaws with regards to the conclusions it is supposed to support, according to media.

First off, the researcher herself, despite using the cliched "I have evangelical books (also friends)" defense, is not exactly a model of partiality. 

Second, the researcher said that she compared "apples to apples". In essence, the study compared people from the same peer group. The researcher justifies herself:

"This study came about because somebody who decides to take a virginity pledge tends to be different from the average American teenager. The pledgers tend to be more religious. They tend to be more conservative. They tend to be less positive about sex. There are some striking differences," Rosenbaum said. "So comparing pledgers to all non-pledgers doesn't make a lot of sense."

Okay then. I'm not sure about her rationale, but the fact that she took this route nullifies all of the media hyperbole about the conclusions of her study. (Which, unfortunately for her, the researcher seems to buy into...) First of all, if you situate the pledgers within the same strata of people who think like them, then you cannot make a generalization beyond that peer group analyzed. At best, the conclusion would be, "abstinence pledges do not affect rates of premarital intercourse among (insert peer group here)". I'm assuming that the peer group she studied is the one that tends to be more promiscuous, hence, highlighting the supposedly more "conservative" or "religious" people within the peer group who differentiate themselves by pledging. So, in effect, not only is she not comparing pledgers with all non-pledgers, she's not even comparing ALL kinds of pledgers with non-pledgers. It is a very specific study with a very specific conclusion. And that conclusion is "peer pressure" works. It doesn't really say anything about abstinence pledges as a whole. The only way to reach the conclusion the media wants this study to reach is if it compares rates between peer groups more likely to have pledgers in them with the rest of the other teens, which this study manifestly did not do.

Now, the US mainstream media is very liberal. (What, you didn't see the pom-poms for Obama?) So, the story running in the background, the supposed failure of abstinence education, is near and dear to their hearts. As a result, they grab on to conclusions that the study doesn't even support.

They heartily ignore the fact that the study doesn't even seem to control for the variable of "type of sex-education recieved", immediately assuming that all pledge-takers were part of abstinence programs (you'd never be able to tell from the study) and that pledge-taking is a component of abstinence programs. Both assumprtions are false. In fact, few abstinence programs make pledges a part of their curriculum. And, as it stands, not too many students are exposed to such programs. Not even Sarah Palin's children. (So, yeah, Bristol Palin recieved the regular awkward banana condom sex-ed.)

These media guys don't even seem to realize that a drunkard who takes a sobriety pledge will still drink if surrounded by prodding alcoholics will in fact, still drink. Same thing applies to smokers, or any sufferer of habitual addiction. Abstinence pledgers are no different. Especially if such pledgers are only doing it as part of a curriculum, and not out of personal conviction. (There's a reason why these pledges don't exist in many abstinence sex-ed courses.) Abstinence pledgers who do not recieve follow-up and continue abiding by the practices of their peer group do not an indictment of abstinence sex-ed make.

The study clearly takes a limited scope and has limited conclusions, and does not lend it itself to stretching over conclusions way beyond its scope like spandex on a fat chick. But, despite this, the purveyors of "nuance" still come up with crappy headlines like "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Says". One would think that the editor is a liberal version of J. Jonah Jamison. Or is at least similarly educated.

So, if the Philippine Daily Inquirer ever pulls a stunt like this out of its ass, especially when it comes to hot issues like the RH bill, you ought to know better than to stick with what some hack writer and his editor decides is important to you.