It’s been said that statistics are like swimwear, they’re revealing but what they don’t reveal is what’s most important. The natural reason for statistics is to draw conclusions about the world around us. As a person who is fascinated by stats, whether in sports or society, it pains me to see people muck up the interpretation of what studies conclude.
Many people (people who get paid enough to know better) confuse “correlation” with “causation.” A good example of the difference would be to look at people who eat salad every day for lunch verses those who do not. If your results showed that people who eat salad every day for lunch are healthier than those who do not, you could say one of two things. You could say salad makes you healthy (causation) OR you could say that people who eat salad every day for lunch are more likely to be committed to a healthy lifestyle and are noticeably healthier because they’re more likely to eat right at other meals and exercise (correlation). In other words, salad isn’t the only contributing factor to their health.
A recent joint study by the University of California and the University of Minnesota revealed that high school teens who have casual sex are likely to have lower GPA’s than average, while there is no noticeable difference between those who are sexually active in “committed relationships” (a not-clearly defined term) and those who abstain entirely. One of the conclusions drawn by the folks who ran the study was that this “hooking up” resulted in lower grades, while a “committed relationship” protected teens from the damaging effects of sex.
They didn’t seem to consider the idea that those with lower GPA’s might include kids who had an all-around disinterest in academics and an interest in things like delinquent behavior, drug use or casual sex. These might be the same kids who were more likely to TP houses or spray paint overpasses, but it seems unlikely to me that a study would conclude that those students who buy more spray paint and toilet paper are risking a hit to their report card.
In other words, the conclusion seems to be that casual sex leads to bad grades while a string of monogamous sexual relationships early in life does not. No one seems concerned with the values and morals modeled in families of origin that might include casual attitudes about school, work, drugs, crime and sex. A strong correlation between casual sex and bad grades is not surprising, but causation is a harder case to prove.
More importantly, the findings indicated to many people that the solution for teens is to teach them the importance of relationships. Apparently, the only negative or important consequence to sex is bad grades. Who knew? You know what I think about that, if you read my previous post on the social justice implications of that mindset in middle class America.
What conclusions do you draw from this study?
Many people (people who get paid enough to know better) confuse “correlation” with “causation.” A good example of the difference would be to look at people who eat salad every day for lunch verses those who do not. If your results showed that people who eat salad every day for lunch are healthier than those who do not, you could say one of two things. You could say salad makes you healthy (causation) OR you could say that people who eat salad every day for lunch are more likely to be committed to a healthy lifestyle and are noticeably healthier because they’re more likely to eat right at other meals and exercise (correlation). In other words, salad isn’t the only contributing factor to their health.
A recent joint study by the University of California and the University of Minnesota revealed that high school teens who have casual sex are likely to have lower GPA’s than average, while there is no noticeable difference between those who are sexually active in “committed relationships” (a not-clearly defined term) and those who abstain entirely. One of the conclusions drawn by the folks who ran the study was that this “hooking up” resulted in lower grades, while a “committed relationship” protected teens from the damaging effects of sex.
They didn’t seem to consider the idea that those with lower GPA’s might include kids who had an all-around disinterest in academics and an interest in things like delinquent behavior, drug use or casual sex. These might be the same kids who were more likely to TP houses or spray paint overpasses, but it seems unlikely to me that a study would conclude that those students who buy more spray paint and toilet paper are risking a hit to their report card.
In other words, the conclusion seems to be that casual sex leads to bad grades while a string of monogamous sexual relationships early in life does not. No one seems concerned with the values and morals modeled in families of origin that might include casual attitudes about school, work, drugs, crime and sex. A strong correlation between casual sex and bad grades is not surprising, but causation is a harder case to prove.
More importantly, the findings indicated to many people that the solution for teens is to teach them the importance of relationships. Apparently, the only negative or important consequence to sex is bad grades. Who knew? You know what I think about that, if you read my previous post on the social justice implications of that mindset in middle class America.
What conclusions do you draw from this study?
No comments:
Post a Comment