David wrote: "I wouldn't put too much normative stock in Freakonomics.
It also cites research suggesting that abortion has a net positive effect
on educational acheivement because poor African-American unwed mothers
are statistically the biggest users of abortion services and their
children statistically are the weakest educational performers. Whatever
you think about abortion, I don't think you'd want to argue that it's a
good thing because it culls out poor black kids."
Neither does the author of FREAKONOMICS. He makes that point very clear
in the book.
In any case, the book is a "popular" one, not scholarly. Behind the
findings are, I understand, good scientific research papers.
Data is data, whether one "likes" it or not.
Burgy
Received on Mon Mar 27 12:45:19 2006
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