Their Readin' And 'Ritin' Ain't So Good, But The 'Rithmatic Is Tops. 'Specially Multiplyin'

You know, as touchers of the future ourselves--no not that way--we feel obligated to once again point out the wisdom and relevance of that old bumper sticker:

Think Education is Expensive? Try Ignorance

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests. Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh offers a speculation of the most probable explanation: "We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself.

Gee, ya think? We were going to go with something in the water.

While the study reveals information about states as a whole, it doesn't shed light on whether an individual teen who is more religious will also be more likely to have a child. "You can't talk about individuals, because you don't know what's producing the [teen birth] rate," said Amy Adamczyk, a sociologist at the City University of New York.

Well, actually Amy, we do know what's producing the [teen birth] rate. Scientifically speaking, this scenario is a direct result of the addition the available number of females (x)and males (y) divided by the availability of sufficiently unsupervised locations (z). Therefore we can calculate that y + x / z = the total number of instances in which the previously identified research cohort will successfully accomplish copulation. Or, to put it in the vernacular, how many games of hide the sausage are going on at any given time.

"It is possible that an anti-contraception attitude could be caused by religious cultures and that could exert its effect mainly on the non-religious individuals in the culture," Strayhorn said. But, he added, "We don't know."

OK, so in the most religious state in the nation, only the godless heathens are having sex? What would that result in, like four or five births per year?

Said Amy Adamczyk, a sociologist at the City University of New York, who was not involved in the current study. "Are there just a couple of really precocious religious teenagers who are running around and getting pregnant and having all of these babies, but that's not the norm?"

Yeah, that's a possibility, providing they figured out a way to have a kid every three weeks or so.

The researchers found a strong correlation between statewide conservative religiousness and statewide teen birth rate even when they accounted for income and abortion rates.

Maybe someone needs to explain to the kids that "Love thy neighbor" is metaphorical.

"The index of religiosity is tapping into more fundamentalist religious belief," John Santelli of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University said. "I'm sure there are parts of New England that have very low teen birth rates, which have pretty high religious participation, but they're probably less conservative, less fundamentalist type of congregations."

You're sure of that, huh? Kind of an odd thing for a scientist to say without any of that there whadayercallit, data and stuff. Sure you aren't trying to tip toe away from the implication that these yokels grew up stupid and they're doing their best to pass that along to their kids? Just asking.

Earlier marriage among religious individuals could also partly explain the finding.

Can't argue with that. After all, you probably have met all your cousins by second or third grade.