From: slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer)
Subject: Re: Some useful statistics
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 03:51:17 GMT
Keywords: From: decay@

garvin+@cs.cmu.edu (Susan Garvin) writes:

>In article <BrsKID.85w@news.cso.uiuc.edu> slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer) writes:
>#garvin+@cs.cmu.edu (Susan Garvin) writes:
>#
>#
>#
>##I don't claim omniscience, Kellmeyer.  
>#
>##I have discussed the Reardon "study" here many time before.  I
>##really hope that you are not challenging my claim that his
>##sample was hopelessly biased.  
>#
>#Well, if you'd bother to read his book, you'd find that he points out
>#when he's using WEBA as the basis for data and when he's quoting 
>#published reports that did NOT use WEBA members.  No one, including
>#Reardon himself, claims that the WEBA sample is other than self-selected.

>I have read Reardon's book.  Have you?

Yes.  And I remember what I read.  Do you?

>I have also seen people claim, in this forum and elsewhere, that
>the WEBA sample is not biased.

Yeah.  Sure.  Right.

>#Note, however, that Reardon did a LOT more than just survey WEBA members.
>#He does an overview of the literature, showing where and how literature 
>#sources back up the experience of WEBA members, and how they sometimes
>#mysteriously "miss" the members of this half-million member organization.

>I will have to wait until I can get to the library to check these
>claims.  

You read the book.  You claim it's wrong.  Then you say you don't remember
what's in it.

>#You, however, focus only on the WEBA data, and claim that Reardon said
>#things he did not say, so that you can knock the straw-man down.

>I will also have to wait to have a copy of the book in my hand
>to refute this.

Ah, selective amnesia.  

>##I will, in time, research the morbidity/mortality claims by
>##Hilgers and post the results.  (I can't promise instant results,
>##but I will do the research.)  
>#
>#For someone who does not claim omniscience, you sure act like you have it. 
>#I have a post in which you
>#specifically say that Hilgers studies have been refuted.  NOW you say
>#you haven't even done the research which backs up your claim!!!!!!!

>I have done the research before.  I have read the CDC paper which
>challenged Hilger's statistical methods.  Unlike some here, I
>wish to have citations to back up my claims.  If I had not
>already read them, I wouldn't know that they existed.

Who are you referring to, Susan?  I heavily footnoted MY post, so
it can't be me.  You keep claiming you will soon do research for
various things, but I have yet to see a reference for any of them.

>#You claimed to know how Operation Rescue training sessions
>#worked (though you never attended one) while you were unwilling to
>#make any assumptions about why an abortion counsellor would passively
>#lie to a customer about her baby's heartbeat.  I'm trying to be nice
>#and assume you have some sort of omniscience that applies only to
>#facts presented by pro-lifers. The alternative is that you are a liar.

>I have been to an O.R. training session, Kellmeyer.

>Your little terrorist group has been infiltrated to such an
>extent that you have no secrets.  I would hazard a guess that
>I am not the only reader of talk.abortion who has attended
>such a session.  (I know how to don a dowdy dress, pretend
>to be subservient to men, sing endless hymns, and shout
>"Yes!" at Randall Terry.)

No doubt.  Have you been to a C.A.L.L. training session?  
That's Collegiates Activated to Liberate Life.  They're the ones
who organized the Champaign success story.  
And I would hazard a guess that it isn't all that difficult to 
dress like you and scream about a woman's right to abort - at least
a few of the members of CALL I talked to had some interesting stories
to relate in that regard.

>#I might also note that the article I posted with statistics about 
>#abortion contained exactly ONE (1) reference from David Reardon's
>#book.  That reference was a footnote whose calculations were based 
>#on a half-dozen studies published in medical journals and by state
>#medical agencies.  Those journals and articles were included in the
>#reference. My post contained quite a lot more references besides. 
>#So again, you construct a straw-man (implying that the
>#bulk of my article was based on Reardon's WEBA research) and try 
>#to knock it down.  

>No, I was just challenging the portion of your article that
>I knew to be based on poor scientific methods.  You've decided
>that this translates into a challenge to your entire article.

Tell me, Susan, do you moonlight as a rug?  You sure lie like one.
Your statement is so clearly, staggeringly erroneous, that I can only
assume you made it as a test to see if I read down this far.  I did.

>##Just out of curiosity, do you read articles and books which
>##challenge the validity of anti-abortion studies?
>#
>#More to the point, do you?

>Is that a yes or a no?

>I have read Hilgers, I have read Reardon, I have read the Willkes'
>pathetic attempts, and I have read Terry's rantings.  I've read
>Grant as well.  I've read a book by the FFLA, and I've read
>countless contradictory pamphlets.  I keep reading pro-force
>literature, both to spot obvious attempts to twist facts and
>to gain insight into a point of view which is foreign to me.

>Susan

Yeah, and probably always will be.  We are known by the enemies we
keep, Susan, and you would do wonders for my reputation if anyone
knew or cared that you existed.

Steve Kellmeyer