those evil tats:

i remember when i was getting my undergrad in business i needed to take an “economic statistic class.” the class was cool, and the ideas i got from the class are still with me today. One of those talents was to see what is a “cause and effect” – and not a “effect and effect” when it comes to those silly "stat studies." let me explain:

one of the studies we looked at was the correlation between ice cream and crime. it was statistically proven that, as ice cream sales increased, as the crime rate rose – proof, a direct correlation between ice cream and crime. so, the natural conclusion was to outlaw ice cream. after all, if ice cream were taken out of the picture crime would naturally decrease. the problem with logic is that the relationship between ice cream sales and crime is an “effect/effect” relationship – the cause, heat. hot summer days – as the days got hotter both the sales of ice cream and the incidents of crime went up – they were the “effects” of the “cause” hot summer days.

well, as i was going through my day I came across a very interesting article concerning tattoos and adolescent high-risk behavior; "tattooing and high-risk behavior in adolescents" by timothy a. roberts, md and sheryl a. ryan, md, published in PEDIATRICS vol. 110 No. 6 december 2002, pp. 1058-1063 (link). the most interesting part of the entire article is there “effect/effect” conclusion:

“Conclusion. Permanent tattoos are strongly associated with high-risk behaviors among adolescents. In the clinical setting, the presence of a tattoo noted during clinical examination of an adolescent should prompt in-depth assessment for a variety of high-risk behaviors.”

Interesting, they see a tattoo as an “effect” of and “effect” – “high-risk behavior.” And the biggest problem is that many churches – I know of several – who have used this study to be “proof” that tattooing causes “juvenile delinquents.” Yet, as the study indicated, only 4.5% of the over 6,000 youth studied had a permanent tattoo – so, how can anyone come to the conclusion that a tattoo is bad, and can lead to “high-risk behavior?” Or, even that a tattoo is a “sign” of “high-risk behavior?” I know, let’s get rid of that evil ice cream, and the world will be safe again.

pax