No scientific basis.

From time to time the spanking compulsives come up with the argument
that there is no scientific basis for chosing not to spank.

I find this rather laughable.

Here are things we do all the time that their either is no scientific
basis for or the rules keep shifting as more is learned:

The food we eat;

The mates we chose;

The styles of clothing we wear;

How we dress for job interviews;

What flavors we prefer;

We vote, not knowing what the political winds will blow in next to
hector us;

Whether to have our children take dance lessons or Tae Kwan Do;

What is moral;

What is immoral;

That we actually sent people to the moon;

Which is healthier, a low fat or a low carb diet;

To smoke or not (some smokers reach very old age).

The list is probably endless, but all the compulsives can come up with
about choosing to spank or not is "there is no scientific basis."

I've never defended science in this issue. I think the claim is true.

And it's pointless...as though one has to have a scientif basis for
choices before making them. We'd be sitting in our caves still were
that true.

I've enough moral and ethical evidence seen by my own eyes over a very
long time to see again and again the harm that is done to children by
punishment and especially CP.

I've read opinions of others that agee with my experience, and I've
read opinions that diagree. I'm certainly not going to make decisions
by going with those I disagree with.

Nor do I ask anyone else to do so.

I just point out what I know. And I point out one thing I know for
certain: the risk when chosing CP is far too uncontrollable, when
there is a very easy answer to avoid all the risks associated with CP.

There is no clear unvarying line between safe CP and injurious CP.
There is a very clear line between spanking and not spanking. And
clearer still between injurious non-spanking and safe non-spanking.

There is no injury in non-spanking despite the frauds and compusives
that claim there is.

No jails full of unspanked children. No hospital emergency rooms with
children with broken bones from being non-spanked. No mental wards
filled with children suffering from trauma because their parents
didn't spank them.

And very little scientific basis involved.

I understand that long before we understood and could identify
electrons, scientifically, electricity was already used. And even
after the electron and it's characterisists were scientfically proven,
many people continued to have electric power lines strung to their
homes though they were blissfully ignorant of the science involved.

One can choose not to spank based on the evidence that the lights go
on regardless.

Kane

Yet these things are said to be scientific. We study them. And I
think ordinary people with commonsense ideas are intimidated by
this pseudoscience. A teacher who has some good idea of how to
teach her children to read is forced by the school system to do it
some other way--or is even fooled by the school system into
thinking that her method is not necessarily a good one. Or a parent
of bad boys, after disciplining them in one way or another, feels
guilty for the rest of her life because she didn't do "the right
thing," according to the experts.

So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and
science that isn't science.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are
examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the
South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw
airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same
thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like
runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a
wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head
like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's
the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're
doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the
way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So
I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the
apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but
they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

(from Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feyman.
Adapted from the CalTech commencement address given in 1974)

Doan

On 13 Mar 2004, Kane wrote:

From time to time the spanking compulsives come up with the argument
that there is no scientific basis for chosing not to spank.

I find this rather laughable.

Here are things we do all the time that their either is no scientific
basis for or the rules keep shifting as more is learned:

The food we eat;

The mates we chose;

The styles of clothing we wear;

How we dress for job interviews;

What flavors we prefer;

We vote, not knowing what the political winds will blow in next to
hector us;

Whether to have our children take dance lessons or Tae Kwan Do;

What is moral;

What is immoral;

That we actually sent people to the moon;

Which is healthier, a low fat or a low carb diet;

To smoke or not (some smokers reach very old age).

The list is probably endless, but all the compulsives can come up with
about choosing to spank or not is "there is no scientific basis."

I've never defended science in this issue. I think the claim is true.

And it's pointless...as though one has to have a scientif basis for
choices before making them. We'd be sitting in our caves still were
that true.

I've enough moral and ethical evidence seen by my own eyes over a very
long time to see again and again the harm that is done to children by
punishment and especially CP.

I've read opinions of others that agee with my experience, and I've
read opinions that diagree. I'm certainly not going to make decisions
by going with those I disagree with.

Nor do I ask anyone else to do so.

I just point out what I know. And I point out one thing I know for
certain: the risk when chosing CP is far too uncontrollable, when
there is a very easy answer to avoid all the risks associated with CP.

There is no clear unvarying line between safe CP and injurious CP.
There is a very clear line between spanking and not spanking. And
clearer still between injurious non-spanking and safe non-spanking.

There is no injury in non-spanking despite the frauds and compusives
that claim there is.

No jails full of unspanked children. No hospital emergency rooms with
children with broken bones from being non-spanked. No mental wards
filled with children suffering from trauma because their parents
didn't spank them.

And very little scientific basis involved.

I understand that long before we understood and could identify
electrons, scientifically, electricity was already used. And even
after the electron and it's characterisists were scientfically proven,
many people continued to have electric power lines strung to their
homes though they were blissfully ignorant of the science involved.

One can choose not to spank based on the evidence that the lights go
on regardless.

Kane

Doan wrote:

Yet these things are said to be scientific. We study them. And I
think ordinary people with commonsense ideas are intimidated by
this pseudoscience. A teacher who has some good idea of how to
teach her children to read is forced by the school system to do it
some other way--or is even fooled by the school system into
thinking that her method is not necessarily a good one. Or a parent
of bad boys, after disciplining them in one way or another, feels
guilty for the rest of her life because she didn't do "the right
thing," according to the experts.

So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and
science that isn't science.

Doan's one of those who believes that HE bases everything on pure science.
And he thinks and speaks as though the use of spanking is soundly backed by
science.

Spanking's been around quite awhile. Therefore, it must be scientifically
sound... right Doan?

What you're completely missing, Doan, is that your philosophy on spanking is
one of those "theories that doesn't work." Your philosophy on the use of
spanking as a parenting practice isn't science no matter how you look it.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are
examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science.

And people who know that children can be respectfully parented with tender
loving care, without ever hitting or hurting them to control their behavior,
are just further examples of people who lack sound wisdom like yours, right
Doan?

-Jerry-

In the
South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw
airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same
thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like
runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a
wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head
like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's
the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're
doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the
way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So
I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the
apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but
they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

(from Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feyman.
Adapted from the CalTech commencement address given in 1974)

Doan

On 13 Mar 2004, Kane wrote:

From time to time the spanking compulsives come up with the argument
that there is no scientific basis for chosing not to spank.

I find this rather laughable.

Here are things we do all the time that their either is no scientific
basis for or the rules keep shifting as more is learned:

The food we eat;

The mates we chose;

The styles of clothing we wear;

How we dress for job interviews;

What flavors we prefer;

We vote, not knowing what the political winds will blow in next to
hector us;

Whether to have our children take dance lessons or Tae Kwan Do;

What is moral;

What is immoral;

That we actually sent people to the moon;

Which is healthier, a low fat or a low carb diet;

To smoke or not (some smokers reach very old age).

The list is probably endless, but all the compulsives can come up with
about choosing to spank or not is "there is no scientific basis."

I've never defended science in this issue. I think the claim is true.

And it's pointless...as though one has to have a scientif basis for
choices before making them. We'd be sitting in our caves still were
that true.

I've enough moral and ethical evidence seen by my own eyes over a very
long time to see again and again the harm that is done to children by
punishment and especially CP.

I've read opinions of others that agee with my experience, and I've
read opinions that diagree. I'm certainly not going to make decisions
by going with those I disagree with.

Nor do I ask anyone else to do so.

I just point out what I know. And I point out one thing I know for
certain: the risk when chosing CP is far too uncontrollable, when
there is a very easy answer to avoid all the risks associated with CP.

There is no clear unvarying line between safe CP and injurious CP.
There is a very clear line between spanking and not spanking. And
clearer still between injurious non-spanking and safe non-spanking.

There is no injury in non-spanking despite the frauds and compusives
that claim there is.

No jails full of unspanked children. No hospital emergency rooms with
children with broken bones from being non-spanked. No mental wards
filled with children suffering from trauma because their parents
didn't spank them.

And very little scientific basis involved.

I understand that long before we understood and could identify
electrons, scientifically, electricity was already used. And even
after the electron and it's characterisists were scientfically proven,
many people continued to have electric power lines strung to their
homes though they were blissfully ignorant of the science involved.

One can choose not to spank based on the evidence that the lights go
on regardless.

Kane

Kane wrote:

There is no injury in non-spanking despite the frauds and compusives
that claim there is.

No jails full of unspanked children. No hospital emergency rooms with
children with broken bones from being non-spanked. No mental wards
filled with children suffering from trauma because their parents
didn't spank them.

C'mon Kane. Doan's already told us that when comparing antisocical
behavior scores with non-cp alternatives, the correlation was stronger
than with spanking.

So, according to the "science" of Doan, not hitting kids is surely messing
them up for life.

-Jerry-

On Sun, 14 Mar 2004, Gerald Alborn wrote:

Kane wrote:

There is no injury in non-spanking despite the frauds and compusives
that claim there is.

No jails full of unspanked children. No hospital emergency rooms with
children with broken bones from being non-spanked. No mental wards
filled with children suffering from trauma because their parents
didn't spank them.

C'mon Kane. Doan's already told us that when comparing antisocical
behavior scores with non-cp alternatives, the correlation was stronger
than with spanking.

Yup! Straus & Mouradian (1998)!

So, according to the "science" of Doan, not hitting kids is surely messing
them up for life.

Huh? If I really thought so, I would have called for a law mandating
spanking! Logic and the anti-spanking zealotS.... ;-)

Doan

Gerald Alborn wrote in message ...
Kane wrote:

There is no injury in non-spanking despite the frauds and compusives
that claim there is.

No jails full of unspanked children. No hospital emergency rooms with
children with broken bones from being non-spanked. No mental wards
filled with children suffering from trauma because their parents
didn't spank them.

C'mon Kane. Doan's already told us that when comparing antisocical
behavior scores with non-cp alternatives, the correlation was stronger
than with spanking.

So, according to the "science" of Doan, not hitting kids is surely messing
them up for life.

No, actually you are unfairly characterizing him. His position is NO
position, or so he claims. He never argues either in favor of or
against spanking.

Haven't you notice how precise and logical he is, as in no answer to
the three challenges but No answer, just avoidance? That's how the
unbiased ones do it, Jerry.

We could learn from them. Every body gets to kill their children if
they wish as long as they think it's a "reasonable standard." Hey,
some places it still is, so of course it's moral and ethical somewhere
on the planet.

I seem to recall an echo. Something about logic and non-spankers. Or
is that just a vague memory?

I would have so enjoyed debating Embry's study. But no one could meet
my criteria. Simple stuff. Just having a nice clean uncluttered
debate.

You'd a thought it was too good to resist....the chance to show me how
wrong Embry was.

I don't suppose you want to debate it with me? It would get kind of
silly since we both know the outcome would be agreement on the gross
and probably most of the discrete bits.

Pretty hard to argue with a systems test for a way of teaching parents
how to discipline without punishement, eh? And that group of kids and
parents. You should see the demographics.

If anyone ever needed proof, considering how tough it can be to
control the explorations of those 3 and 4 year olds.

Best. Nice Chatting with you.

-Jerry-

Kane