On Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:57:57 +0200, wlg <gonefishin@thelake.com>
wrote:
>In article <dmmd44tp1k973ms2hi9q8gupfh9u6ej0dc@4ax.com>,
> HMS Victor Victorian <VictorVictorian@NBG.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello, Dear Friends,
>>
>> I should like to make a few observations regarding the recent
>> discussions, lest you make the mistake of assuming their validity.
>>
>> A statistician is the first who will tell you that a strong
>> correlation only demonstrates a high probability of a relationship
>> between two phenomena. It does not indicate a cause and effect
>> relationship. I once learned in a basic statistics class that the
>> city of Chicago has the highest per capita occurrence of churches in
>> the United States, but it also has the highest occurrence of
>> alcoholism. It would be fallacy to state that one causes the other
>> (though I am certain many of you might agree!) Hence, it is a
>> non-sequitur to state that viewing child pornography CAUSES the viewer
>> to molest.
>>
>> Secondly, a statistical study which fails to adequately account for a
>> variety of variables may appear to uncover a valid relationship, but
>> even if no cause-effect relationship is postulated, this failure
>> invalidates it. The conclusions quoted before the United States
>> Congress were drawn from just such a study. The most glaring error,
>> as protested by several statisticians reviewing the study, was the
>> assumption that the population of inmates selected for the study were
>> representative of the general population. The fact that the
>> participants were enrolled in a BOP sex offender program in which
>> psychiatrists gave credit to inmates who "revealed previously
>> unadmitted offenses" towards their overall progress is particularly
>> suspect. There is no doubt these inmates realised that the
>> recommendations of the psychiatrist-psychologists, so-called
>> professionals, could have an inmate's stay in prison extended
>> indefinitely if they felt he remained a "danger to children." A
>> no-brainer, as they say. Freedom or incarceration hanging in the
>> balance, who would not admit that they'd molested the Pope?
>>
>> Mr. Cartwright has submitted several papers for our perusal. I am
>> impressed with the depth of his research, certainly! As for tinkering
>> with the mind, I would remind dear Mr. Cartwright that a serious
>> injury to the brain changes all kinds of behaviour, whether removing a
>> malignancy or performing a frontal occipital lobotomy. These
>> invasive, destructive and controversial "procedures" have historically
>> been used to "socialize" a variety of groups seen as not valued,
>> including the mentally ill, the poor and the Negro. I would encourage
>> Mr. Cartwright to review American history, in which it was perfectly
>> acceptable to lobotomize children as young as 4 years old to allow
>> them to "fit." Indeed, the National Socialist German Workers Party
>> adopted American "advances" in eugenics to assist in making their
>> undesirables "fit" (which, as you know, often meant "dead.") A
>> wonderful contribution by the United States medical community, I am
>> sure you would agree, Mr. Cartwright.
>>
>> In each case, a bright and usually young, energetic medical
>> professional truly believed he had found the final panacea, often only
>> to have the idea overturned after causing unendurable misery. So I
>> put very little faith in CT scans, or MRIs, to identify the nature of
>> Boylove, for I have seen the fruits of those efforts among others who
>> were too poor, too challenged, or too defenseless, to protect
>> themselves from society's cures. In the tradition of the alchemists,
>> their efforts would be better spent turning lead into gold, or at the
>> very least into petrol.
>>
>> So, dear friends, assign no importance to these studies, for they are
>> simply silliness, merely the frantic tinkerings of those who would
>> dishearten, denigrate and destroy you.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> HMS Victor Victorian NP-g18
>> God Save the Queen!
>> God Preserve the Prince of Wales!
>> Rule Britannia!
>
>Somehow I missed the original discussion this refers to, but I know of
>two studies of inmates made in the 1980s (or before) that may have
>application: in summary, inmates who were convicted of sex offenses had
>LESS exposure to pornography than inmates convicted of other [general]
>offenses. I suspect that is counter to the argument VV is responding
>to, but since I missed it, can't be sure.
Rather it supports it, wlg. If one applies the cause-and-effect
relationship to this situation, as certain protagonists have regarding
causality in viewing child pornography, then one must conclude that
the viewing of pornography causes more general mayhem than actual
sexual offenses. In other words, rather than molesting the Pope,
viewing porn wouldl make a miscreant more likely to steal his mitre.
Preposterous, of course. But this is precisely the r relationship
postualated to perpetuate the controversy over child pornography and
incidents of molestation.
VV
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