Think Critically

1. Think Critically so you don’t become a . . .

2. Both the popular media and politically motivated research organizations have created an image of widespread sexual abuse of teenage girls by sexually deviant adult men. However, a critical analysis of that research presents a very different picture . . .

3. In his New York Times article, “It's Awful! It's Terrible! It's . . . Never Mind”, Stephen A. Holmes shows that this image is, upon closer examination, VERY inaccurate. • Regarding teenage pregnancies, Holmes states that several research organizations reported that as high as 65 percent of teen-age mothers had babies by adult men. • However, researchers did not differentiate between married and single teen-agers. • Also, studies ignored the fact that 62 percent of the teen-age mothers were 18 or 19 years old and, therefore, like the fathers of their babies, adults. • In fact, only 8 percent those age 15 to 17 who gave birth, were unmarried girls made pregnant by men at least five years older.

4. Similarly, the impression given in the media and promoted by several organizations is that children are regularly being kidnapped by strangers, . . . • The Department of Health and Human Services estimated in 1983 that 1.5 million children were reported missing each year. • Later, more rigorous studies would find that 3,200 to 4,600 children a year are abducted by strangers. • This amounts to 1% of all the children reported missing. • And most missing children have been taken by the non-custodial parent in a divorce dispute. • Over 350,000 children are taken by their parents. • In other words, 99% of all “kidnappings” are committed by parents. .

5. Note the last name of the child and the adult.

8. The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity Talk show host Tyra Banks declared a teen sex crisis last fall after her show surveyed girls about sexual behavior. A few years ago, Oprah Winfrey warned parents of a teenage oral-sex epidemic.

9. The Facts . . . A 2002Department of Health and Human Services survey found that: • 30% of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38% in 1995. • During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped from 43% to 31%. Rates also went down among younger teenagers: • In 1995, about 20% said they had had sex before age 15, but by 2002 those numbers had dropped to 13% of girls and 15% of boys.

10. The Ecological Indian . . . . . . a Romantic Myth

11. Chief Seattle’s Speech What does the history of “Chief Seattle’s Speech” tell us about the willingness of even highly educated people to uncritically accept nonsensical ideas and facts that confirm their personal beliefs?

12. Chief Seattle Quotes . . . “I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie left by the white man who shot them from a passing train,” “What is there to life if a man cannot hear the lovely cry of a whippoorwill?” “Yonder sky that had wept tears of compassion upon our fathers for centuries untold ...” “This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

13. Chief Seattle’s Speech has been quoted by a variety of groups, including: • The United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel • The Woman’s Day World of Prayer • Passages(Northwest Airline’s in-flight magazine), • Environmental Action • Greenpeace • The Sierra Club • Canada’s Green Plan • NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth • Joseph Campbell in his book, The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers and in his videoseries, Transformation of Myth through Time.

14. The Myth vs. the Reality

15. Susan Jeffers chose a Plains Indian people (Lakota) to illustrate her book, Brother Eagle, Sister Sky, which contains the text of a speech attributed to Chief Seattle.

16. The cover of Jeffers’ book portrayed Chief Seattle wearing a Plain’s Indian headdress, even though Chief Seattle was not Lakota but rather a Suguamish Indian from the Northwest Coast. The implication is that all Indians are the same.

17. In her book, Jeffers perpetuates popular notions about Plains Indian ecology: “To all of the Native American people, every creature and part of the earth was sacred; it was their belief that to waste or destroy nature and its wonders is to destroy life itself.” --Susan Jeffers (1991) Significantly, two copies of this book are in the Muhlenberg Library.

18. Many Native Americans have promoted the romantic Indian myth as well: "My people, the Blackfeet Indians, have always had a sense of reverence for nature that made them want to move through the world carefully, leaving as little mark behind them as possible." --Jamake Highwater (1983)

19. Some Scholars have even romanticized Native American Ecology: "Hunting was not a war upon animals, not a slaughter for food or profit, but a holy occupation.“ --Frank G. Speck (1939) "Indians … lived here for twenty, thirty, forty thousand years. Everywhere they went, they learned to live with nature. … And they did this without destroying, without polluting, without using up the living resources of the natural world.” --Donald Hughes (1983)

20. Evidence to the Contrary However, ample evidence exists which demonstrates that American Indians, including the Plains Indians, exploited their environments to suit their needs and at times treated those environments badly.

21. Plains Indian Use of Fire: 1. Indians used fire to create clearings for their villages and fields. 2. They used fire to drive or enclose game. 3. They used fire to reduce forests in order to expand grazing lands for bison. 4. They set fire to forests in order to improve traveling and visibility, and to destroy unwanted pests.

22. Principal reasons why Indians set fire to the plains: 1. Improve vegetation 2. Clear an area 3. Facilitate hunting 4. Ceremonial activities 5. Interpersonal relations 6. Interethnic and intra-ethnic relations --60% a. Communication b. Warfare c. Increase exchange rates in fur trade

23. Early Observations of Fire on the Plains: "The prairies burning form some of the most beautiful scenes that are witnessed in this country, and also the most sublime.“ --George Catlin (1830's) Fires are made by war parties, particularly when returning unsuccessful, or after a defeat, to prevent their enemies from tracing their steps.“  --(Bradbury 1809) "Cree set the prairie on fire … to drive Assiniboine from Cree hunting grounds and force them back into their own former territory.“ --Rudolph Kurtz (1851)

24. The Buffalo Drive

25. Reports of waste by Indians: "The Osage leave one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds of excellent meat on every carcass." --Victor Tixier (1839-40) A large band of Sioux killed 1,400 buffalo and traded the tongues for whiskey, leaving the meat and hides to rot. --George Catlin (1832)

26. Reported Buffalo Kills by Indians: 1821: 700 Cheyenne lodges were reported to be consuming 100 bison per day or 36,500 per year. 1830: 25-30,000 buffalo robes exported per year from the Missouri River region by the American Fur Company 1846: 100,000 buffalo robes traded annually at Bent’s Fort in Colorado. 1847: 75,000 buffalo robes sold at Upper Missouri Agency. 1855: 3,150 Cheyenne were killing 40,000 bison per year (44 per man) at Bent’s second Arkansas River Fort.

27. Decline in Bison Population Bison YearPopulation 1800 40,000,000 1850 20,000,000 1865 15,000,000 -- ----- 1870 14,000,000 1880 395,000 1889 1,091 Whites did not begin hunting bison in large numbers until the 1870s.

28. Rationalizations: "While the herds were falling in the thousands before White men's guns, it is not surprising that some Indians abandoned older practices of conservation and killed as many buffalo as they wanted, disregarding their elders' pleas and admonitions, since they could see that if they did not do so, the White men would shoot them anyway.“ --Donald Hughes, 1983 ___________________________________ Does this statement agree with the table on the previous slide?

29. Such Rationalizations: 1. Give different explanations for the same behavior (Occam’s Razor) 2. Treat Native Americans Paternalistically 3. Assign “blame” to adaptive and evolutionary processes 4. Violate the Uniformitarian Principle

30. X Native Americans cannot be an exception to theUniformitarian Principle.

31. "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." --Benjamin Disraeli

32. American Association of University Women (1991)

33. How valid was the operational definition of “Self-Esteem” used in this study? How did restricting the definition of self-esteem serve the interests of the AAUW?

34. Why did the AAUW leave out the data below the line and only include the data on top? How might this have served their interests?

35. A National Public Radio (NPR) story on hate crimes in the U.S. . . . . . . Stated that 65% of the perpetrators of hate crimes were White. How does this compare to the percentage of the U.S. population that is White?

36. FBI Hate Crime Statistics 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Total 8433 10,706 9,861 9,235 9,301 9,430 9,239 White 4,991 4,892 4,523 4,045 4,092 4,111 6,054 (75%) (59.2%) (45.7%) (45.9%) (43.0%) (44.0%) (43.5%) (65.5%) Black 2,253 1,258 1,157 958 947 1,021 1,885 (12.3%) (26.7%) (11.8%) (11.7%) (10.3%) (10.2%) (10.8%) (20.4%) Unknown 615 2,211 3,858 3,877 3.973 3,339 758 ?(7.3%) (20.7%) (39.1%) (42.0%) (42.7%) (35.4%) (8.2%) ______________________________________________________ The more important question is why does the incidence of hate crime vary over time, and how does the high proportion of “unknown” perpetrators undermine any ability to determine the relationship between ethnicity and hate crimes?

37. The Public Broadcasting System has used Gary Null as a source of fundraising, giving his books and tapes away in return for donations to PBS. Null is a “nutritional entrepreneur” who promotes his books and tapes on the claim that he has a Ph.D. in science and to have conducted extensive scientific research on the subject of nutrition. The reality is that Null’s Ph.D. is a “bought” degree from the UnionInstitute and University, which requires only 35 days on campus to earn a degree and has the doctoral candidate’s thesis evaluated by a committee chosen by the candidate. How does this compare to individuals who have earned Ph.D degrees from established universities?

38. Pastor Lundmark argues that Evolution is “Sheer Nonsense”. * * * What is wrong with his argument? * * * What “Baloney” Arguments does he use?

39. Amazon Forest Still Burning Despite the Good Intentions By LARRY ROHTERNew York Times August 23, 2002 “In spite of efforts to limit deforestation and encourage "sustainable development," the assault on the Amazon basin continues in Brazil.”

40. According to the article . . . • “The Brazilian jungle is . . . disappearing at a rate of more than 6,000 square miles a year, an area the size of Connecticut.” • “The Amazon . . . accounts for nearly 60 percent of Brazil's territory.” • “80 percent of deforestation in the Amazon occurs in a 31-mile corridor on either side of highways and roads.” • “More than 385,000 square miles, or 12 percent of Brazil's territory, an area larger than England and France combined, has been formally transferred to Indian control.” • "The cost of doing business as a logger has increased and the profit margins have gone down, • “Deforestation in Mato Grosso, which has had the fastest growing economy of any Brazilian state, has declined by more than half, to about 4,600 square miles over the two-year period that ended on Jan 1.”

41. However, an examination of the facts presented in the article suggests a very different conclusion: If Indians control 385,000 square miles of land . . . And if Indian land accounts for 12% of Brazil . . . . Then, all of Brazil equals about3,208,333 square miles. In addition . . . If the rain forest equals 60% of Brazil . . . Then the rain forest equals about1,925,000 square miles. Consequently, 1.The 6,000 square miles of forest being cut each year represents .31% (0.0031) of Brazil’s rain forest. 2. At the present rate of cutting, it will take 320 years before Brazil’s rain forest is removed.

42. “Logging Jobs Benefit Pygmies, but Imperil Their Forest Home” • As with the previous article, the facts included in the second article do not suggest that the forest of the Congo Basin is in imminent danger of over-exploitation either. • According to this article, • 1.  The Congo Basin comprises 840,000 square miles. • 2.  Logging  within the Congo Basin consumes 3,125 square miles of forest every year. • Thus, • The 3,125 square miles of forest being cut each year represents .37% (0.0037) of the Congo Basin forest. • 2. At the present rate of logging, it will take 268 years before the Congo's rain forest is completely removed (again, assuming thatno additional trees are either planted or grow naturally).

43. We hear much about the loss of natural resources in the U.S. However, . . . . . . between 1952 and 1987, forest land in the U.S. increased from 664 to 731 million acres. and . . . annual timber growth in the U.S. exceeds harvest by 37% and has exceeded harvest every year since 1952.

44. Landfills vs. Recycling?

45. According to popular wisdom, it is better for the environment to use paper cups than polystyrene cups. As a result, considerable pressure was placed on fast food restaurants, such as McDonalds, to switch from plastic to paper products. However, the facts suggest that using paper products actually create more pollution. Because 6 times as much wood pulp as polystyrene is required to produce a cup, the paper cup consumes about 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much electricity, and twice as much cooling water as a polystyrene foam cup. About 580 times the volume of waste paper is produced for the pulp required for the paper cup as compared to the polystyrene requirement for the polyfoam cup. The contaminants present in the wastewater from pulping and bleaching operations are removed to a varying degree depending on site-specific details, but the residuals present in all categories except metal salts still amount to 10 to 100 times those present in the wastewater system from polystyrene processing.

46. Similarly, it is generally assumed that recycling is always preferable to using landfills. For some products, this may be the case. However, for others it may not be . . . “Recycling . . . exacts and environmental price. The reuse of paper, for example, involves processes that generate a considerable amount of hazardous waste. In order to recycle newspapers, magazines, and, indeed, any printed paper, the paper must first be de-inked. At the end of the de-inking process one is left with essentially two products: on the one hand, de-inked fiber that will be turned into new paper; and on the other, a large quantity of toxic sludge.” --W. Rathje, RUBBISH: The Archaeology of Garbage, p. 209) It also requires an additional 5,000 gallons of water to produce one ton of paper from recycled paper than from wood pulp.

47. Consequently, U.S. Office of Technology Assessment has determined . . . “It is not clear whether secondary manufacturing processes produce less pollution per ton of material processed than primary manufacturing.” --U.S. Office of Technology Assessment (1988)

48. Landfills • According to several calculations, if the U.S. continues to create waste at the same rate that it currently does, a landfill 35 miles long by 35 miles wide and 100 yards deep (approximately .03% of U.S. land surface) could accommodate U.S. trash for 1,000 years. • Landfills in the U.S., according to one source, cover approximately the same amount of land surface ascemeteries.

49. Yuppie Environmentalism: Use an "environmentally responsible" credit card to ease your conscience while you buy your TV's, VCRs, designer clothes made in Chinese prisons and the gas to feed you new Sports Utility Vehicle!

50. The Bible