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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,net.legal,net.singles
Subject: Re: Attorney General's Commission on Pornography
Message-ID: <1430@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Sep-86 19:56:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.1430
Posted: Wed Sep 10 19:56:34 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Sep-86 07:04:37 EDT
References: <1487@mtx5a.UUCP> <15487@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Distribution: net
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
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Xref: mnetor talk.politics.misc:53 net.legal:3520 net.singles:10207

In article <15487@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> (Gene Ward Smith) writes:
 
>>Moreover, the existing population-based
>>evidence for the United States shows a correlation between circulation
>>rates of magazines containing pornography (primarily of a non-violent type)
>>and rates of reported rape in the fifty states during that time, even after
>>many other factors were statistically controlled.
 
>   It is very difficult to make this kind of a case, because of the 
>difficulty of actually adequately controlling the other factors.

	Another very important difficulty with this kind of study is
that it fails to distinguish cause and effect. Given that two factors,
A and B are correlated there are ate least three possible *classes* of
reasons. They are:
	1) A causes B, either directly or indirectly
	2) B causes A
	3) some other factor, C, causes both A and B

The Meese Commission jumps straight from A and B are correlated to A
causes B! There are in fact at least two perfectly good models for C
causes both A and B. One is that some environments, such as slums,
generally promote mental health problems, which in turn lead to both
a large demand for pornography and a larger rate of sexual crimes.
Second, since porn is technically illegal everywhere in the US it
might be that it is only sold regularly in areas with genrally poor
law enforcement, where other kinds of crimes are going to be more
common anyway. Actually, I believe a combination of these two is quite
likely, and fully explains the correlation.
 



>   If Dr. Dietz is interested, what makes ME
>violent is loud heavy-metal rock music. I think it should be banned because
>of its adverse heath effects (hearing loss) and tendency to promote violence.
>Any takers?

	Unfortunately, yes!
---

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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