Eventually however, as we mature we must learn to use our intellect to test the things we were taught as children. Just as sure as survival depends on that early blind trust, human progress depends on the mature and intelligent questioning of things. 'Will my eyes get stuck if I look cross-eyed?' or 'Will cracking my knuckles actually cause arthritis?' or 'Do toads really give us warts?' or 'Am I most likely to kill myself while I'm a teenager?'.
If we never decide to check things out for ourselves and simply parrot what we were taught as kids, we'll be no better off than Doug is in this installment.
As always, for context here is the link to the video I will be discussing in this installment.
Click for original video direct from Batchelor's website
And here is the 24 second clip taken from the linked video that I will be addressing directly.
Here's the script from the above video clip:
“So many things that are plaguing our society can be trace back to evolution.
Something I learned growing up is the highest group in our society that commit suicide are the teenagers. Between the age of 11, 22. That's where most people take their lives.”
No Doug. No! NO! NO!!!! This one is easy man - it's time to give up the blind faith in what you learned growing up. You're not a child anymore. People (foolishly) trust you and it's time you join a world where you take responsibility for things you present as truth to others.
So just how bad is the load that Batchelor shovels out this round? It's bad bad.
His assertion regarding suicides – that it is the teenagers in our society where “most people take their lives” wasn't true when they indoctrinated Dougie as a little boy, it's not true now and it was never true between then and now. It's not true in the US. It's not true in the world as a whole. It's not true in Europe as a whole. It's not true in the Scandinavian countries, It's not true in Japan. It's not true in China. It's not true in Russia. (See the pattern? Should I go on? - Ok, I will) It's not even true in India which has one of highest youth suicide rates in the world (if not the highest) .
Not only that, but by the end of this installment, I'll show you US data demonstrating an inverse correlation between a belief in evolution and suicide (You do know what 'correlation' is Doug and how it differs from 'causation', right? No? Didn't think so).
Alright, here we go. Contrary to Mr. Batchelor, I'll actually back up my assertions with direct references and links to the data.
For the most part, the data for the USA comes from the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and for the rest of the world from the WHO (World Health Organization). The India, Canada and UK data sets comes direct from those governments. There are a few third party charts included here, but they also get their data from those sources.
As a display note, for ease of quick scanning I have added to all of the charts, a green box (young age) and a red box (peak suicides). These boxes surround the relevant data.
According to Doug, the big numbers and high chart lines should always be inside my green boxes. If you look in the red box, you will see that the numbers and line within them are without fail higher in the red boxes with older ages (often massively higher). Again, what you will see is exactly the opposite of what Doug would have his enraptured, nodding audience believe.
Ok, this first chart is for the US and covers the year that the video was made (2005 according to the Amazing Facts web page where it's posted).
Notice in addition to the green box (young ages, lower suicide rates) and red box (older ages, higher suicide rates) I also underlined a sentence above the chart that highlights Batchelor's nonsense.
US Chart:
Just to confirm that Doug's assertion wasn't even true when he was growing up, here is a historical chart from the 1950s forward. Notice that when Doug was young, the suicide rates among the older crowd were 5x or more over the younger crowd.
If growing up he was taught what he claims, apparently an apple doesn't fall far from the tree when it comes to just making stuff up.
US historical suicide information -1950 and later. (Last chart on page)
Now just to be fair to Doug, I'm going to look at the data one other way – total numbers of suicides rather than suicide rate. In a given period, one COULD have a lower suicide rate among the young and yet have more total suicides due to the quirks of population distribution. Let's just suppose he was talking total suicide numbers and not rates. Will this help him out? Nope. Sorry Doug.
This chart is from the very year he made his claim.
US Numbers:
We'll now throw up a global chart and then in quick succession go through 10 various countries from around the world.
Global Chart:
Russia:
China:
Canada:
Sweden:
Japan:
India:
France:
Italy:
Germany:
United Kingdom:
I'm pretty sure by now that you're bored with even the pretty colored lines to say nothing of the data. I also hold that through the principle of the consilience of the evidence I've made my point. Evidence wins, assertion loses.
Buuuut … let's have just one more moment of fun shall we? Not only was he claiming things as true that were demonstrably false, he was blaming the issue that he falsely created on evolution. It's a common practice among the YEC (Young Earth Creation) evangelists like Batchelor, Hovind, Ham, etc. Build a fake world of straw, light in on fire and then run around yelling “LOOK WHAT THE EVOLUTIONISTS DID!!!”.
So, there is a polling website which electronically polled almost 9,000,000 people across the US (yes, nine million and that's a LOT) with this question: “Do you believe in the theory of evolution?”
Here's the polling site, you can vote for yourself (those in the US at least).
Here is a chart put together from that data (I highlighted the chart with a red arrow toward the dark green areas).
Evolution Belief by State:
Those of us from the US will recognize and can name those dark green states and DC (Washington DC) which signify the highest positive response in the entire US to the question (over 80% said yes in those states and DC). Included in that dark green area is:
- Rhode Island
- Massachusetts
- New York
- New Jersey
- Washington DC
5: Rhode Island
4: Massachusetts
3: New York
2: New Jersey
1: Washington DC
Recognize those 5? Those are the very same 5 states where belief in evolution is the highest.
Suicide Rates by State:
Doug wants to blame suicide on evolution (yes, watch his entire video – he does that) and yet – the group of people who report they believe evolution the most are also at the least risk of suicide.
Conversely (and as I noted on the chart as well), the 5 states on the other end of the spectrum, those with the highest suicide rates fall below the national average in self proclaimed belief in evolution.
Now unlike Batchelor, I really do try not to make nonsense claims and present them as fact. I do not claim that I just proved that a belief in evolution insulates one from suicide. Social factors are way too complicated for such a simple and unscientific treatment. However, what it does show at first glance is a rather powerful blow to Doug's attempt to connect belief in evolution and suicide.
So in summary, we blew his claim about the young in our society being the most likely to commit suicide clear out of the water. And we showed his claimed evolution/suicide connection to be unsupported and beyond suspect.
Job done for this round.
I have had serious arguments with people over whether or not correlation equals causation. It is the people who believe such who are more easily misled.
ReplyDeleteI guess some people really have nothing to do.
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