Some people either lack the capacity to understand research, or intentionally interpret it in a fashion that would appear to support their beliefs. Some people of the religious fundamentalist variety in particular seem rather prone to this critical flaw.
For example,
In March 2004, the medical journal Studies In Family Planning published an article titled ‘Condom Promotion For Aids Prevention In The Developing World: Is It Working?’. It says that high HIV transmission rates have continued despite high rates of condom use in many sub-Saharan African countries.
In fact, the nations with the highest levels of condom availability - like Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa - continue to have the highest HIV prevalence.
Compared with this from the actual abstract of the paper:
Other countries continue to have high rates of HIV transmission despite high reported rates of condom use among the sexually active. The impact of condoms may be limited by inconsistent use, low use among those at highest risk, and negative interactions with other strategies. (emphasis mine)
There is a fundamental difference between reported preferences and revealed preferences, and a very important reason why economists do not like to use data from surveys. The Soviet experience of central-planning should be clear evidence that self-reported data from surveys are almost always inaccurate.
People often say one thing, and do another. Religious fundamentalists should be no stranger to this phenomenon (they do the same thing). It is no accident that the abstract from the study quoted by Edmond Eh Kim Chew uses the phrase ‘reported rates of condom use‘. Researchers understand that the margin of error for self-reported data, especially where it involves behaviour like sex, is expectedly large.
What this establishes is that people say that they use condoms more than they actually do. Or alternatively, they render it ineffective because they don’t know how to use it (breakage, tears, etc). For Edmond to claim that this means condoms do not work shows that he is either incredibly dense, or just a barefaced liar. What is needed here is more education on how to use condoms, not less.
Next,
The report tells us that the national HIV prevalence for Uganda fell from around 15 per cent in 1991 to a mere 5 per cent in 2001. The key reason for the impressive result is the decrease in multiple sexual relationships. Condom promotion was not an important component in the campaign.
Compared with this summary report that also contains the report cited by Edmond Eh Kim Chew:
It appears that Uganda’s decline in HIV prevalence was associated with positive changes in all three ABC behaviors: increased abstinence, including delayed and considerably reduced levels of sexual activity by youth since the late 1980s; increased faithfulness and partner reduction behaviors; and increased condom use by casual partners.
Furthermore, later in the same report:
There is a clear need for a balance of A, B, and C interventions. Approaches should be combined as appropriate based on the local cultural context as well as the state of the AIDS epidemic. In Southeast Asia, HIV is still largely confined to high-risk populations, in which correct and consistent condom use is relatively easy to implement. In many African countries, the epidemic is more generalized and thus requires an appropriate mix of A, B, and C approaches.
What this shows is that even for agencies which allow for faith-based abstinence approaches, there is clearly a recognition that different factual scenarios call for different approaches. Again, Edmond Eh Kim Chew calls assertion that condom promotion was ‘not an important component’ is clearly false.
In an Asian society like Singapore, the best strategy is to teach the young people to abstain from sex before marriage and then to remain faithful to their spouses after marriage. And this is one of the crucial messages being taught to students in the sexuality workshops conducted by the Family Life Society.
I agree that abstinence and fidelity are private moral behaviours which should be encouraged, as long as it is a free and voluntary choice not made through coercion, fraud or physical force. The problem is that this free choice is effectively made void by the fact that the Family Life Society lied about the effectiveness of condoms, and the nature of its ineffectiveness.
The crucial message that I am teaching here, is that regardless of how morally virtuous one’s message may be, once you lie or deceive in order to convince people of your message, then you have lost all moral authority, and should not expect people to trust or respect you.
On the last point,
Also, in June 2003, the United Nations’ Aids agency (Unaids) published a draft study which said that condoms are actually ineffective in protecting against HIV at an estimated 10 per cent of the time.
Even Google could not find this purported draft study cited by Edmond Eh Kim Chew, but I can direct readers to the current UNAIDS page, where they state:
According to UNFPA, only 4.9% of married women of reproductive age use condoms. Many women find it hard or impossible to negotiate with their partners to use condoms. There is therefore a critical need for protection options women can control themselves.
Hmm, is it not a coincidence that Edmond Eh Kim Chew is a man?
And the link below leads to a PDF file that states clearly the position of UNAIDS on the matter of condom use[PDF]:
The male latex condom is the single, most efficient, available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections… Conclusive evidence from extensive research among heterosexual couples in which one partner is infected with HIV shows that correct and consistent condom use significantly reduces the risk of HIV transmission from both men to women, and also from women to men.
Also consider the public papers available for download along the right side of that page. Every single one of the papers reiterates the stance in the position statement.
So Mr Edmond Eh Kim Chew, which one are you, liar or moron?
The Straits Times - Learning about contraception not enough for Aids prevention - Feb 14, 2006
Population Council | Studies in Family Planning | March 2004, Vol. 35, No. 1
USAID Health: HIV/AIDS, News/Info, ABC Approach
UNAIDS.org | Condoms
17 Comments
Yeah, read about it and like… uh? Is this guy high on drugs on what? Anyway, its important to keep publishing such comparative article and especially if one side is filled with inaccuracies. Thanks for doing the up front work… wil try writing to ST on this.
Seeing that Kelvin Wong also believes Christian missionaries imported the sense of shame to an unsuspecting Japanese society, I’d rather not…
He might quite possibly out crackpot ST’s Christian crackpot forum writers.
Ah the joy of the internet. No longer can people get away with simply asserting stuff and wrongfully citing studies.
Maybe he’s neither a liar nor plain stupid, just Christian =D
There appears to have been a broken link.
Kelvin Wong, the secretary of PLU saith thus in http://www.saltwetfish.net/journal/?p=83
“The japanese are quite unabashed about their bodies or being naked, unlike the hangups that Singpaoreans have, most of which comes from conservative Christian values. Whatever hangups the japanese have about being naked probably comes from the American christian and other Jesuits Priest when they landed in Japan.”
I’d like to see a PLU crackpot vs Christian crackpot ST forum deathmatch. Bring it on!
Insightful once again Han.
Damn! these Fundimentalists are starting to look like a twisted love child between [dictator of your choice] and Karl Marx — some sort of new-age restrictive communism. Their actions show their interest in the end of choice and individual power.
They need to stop with this AIDS bullsh*t though, they’ve been hating on condoms way before that and the only reasons they needed then was “cause God said.” Remember when religons used to be basly? They would just say their inane stuff and if you challenged them, they would immediately break out into prayer and ask God to forgive you. Now we got nutcases who managed to suck their way to a PhD.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your indefatigable research and quest for truth (or at least something closer to it than what Edmund Eh and his ilk purport to be the case) never ceases to amaze me.
I think Edmond (Eh Kim Chew) is well-intentioned. “Well-intentioned” as in do-what-I-say-or-you’ll-burn-in-hell-(muah-ha-ha-ha) sort of way.
I just wish he made better arguments, rather than throwing out unsubstantiated statement (i.e. piles of $hit) and non-sequitors, then at least there’d be more interesting debate going on. (Bill O’Reilly anyone?) He’s a classic example of someone who thinks pulling quotes out of his arse equates with making valid points. Refuting people like Edmond is like trying to talk sense with Krusty the Clown (except that Krusty’s smarter).
Does the Straits Times publish his posts purely for entertainment value? Cos seriously, he’s as funny as they come…
He might honestly believes what he says. Or he might honestly believe what he was told or read. Has anyone tried googling the reference to see if there’re any fundy groups making the same argument yet?
thanks for the research, if only the ST can be so discerning not to continue to publish lie after lie after last year’s debacle on condoms and again repeated by dr john hui peng keem most recently.
I don’t know what happened to not bearing false witness, but it seems like these Fundies are the ones with forked tongues
That’s not the only forum letter written by Edmond Eh Kim Chew that the ST has published.
Jan 29, 2005, ST.
Why God ‘allowed’ deadly tsunami to strike
Recent attempts at philosophical/theological reflection on the tsunami disaster by Mr Tan Tarn How (’Evil? No way, come hell or high water’; The Sunday Times, Jan 9), Ms Chua Mui Hoong (’Where was God when the tsunamis hit?’; Jan 16) and Dr Andy Ho (’Where God was when the tsunami struck’; ST, Jan 22) raise interesting points, but contain important mistakes.
In the great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, God is believed to be (1) existing, (2) omnipresent (all present), (3) omniscient (all knowing), (4) omnipotent (all powerful) and (5) omnibenevolent (all good).
However, the challenge from the problem of evil is this: given the presence of suffering in this world, it is not possible to affirm all the five properties of God stated. Accordingly, Mr Tan denies (1), Ms Chua denies (4) and Dr Ho denies (5).
Firstly, Mr Tan states that the problem of evil provides evidence that God does not exist. This is based on a wrong conception of evil. Evil is not a substance or a thing; it is a state of lack of something good. So, the concept of evil is parasitic on the concept of good. This being so, the existence of evil does not disprove God. Rather, the reverse is true.
As St Thomas Aquinas (1224-74) teaches:
Boethius introduces a philosopher asking the question: ‘If there is a God, how come there is evil?’. The argument should be turned the other way: ‘If there is evil, there is a God.’ For there would be no evil, if the order of goodness were taken away…
Next, Ms Chua believes that God is not omnipotent because He created people with free will and cannot force them against their freedom. This is based on another conceptual misunderstanding.
Freedom is part of the essence of a human being. Someone without free will is not a human, but an animal or a robot.
To say that God is not omnipotent because He cannot stop humans from being free is like saying that God is not all-powerful because He cannot make pigs fly.
To blame God for not being able to go against human freedom is to accuse God of an inability to perform a meaningless contradiction.
Lastly, Dr Ho believes that God is not benevolent to all His creatures but ‘only some whom he chooses so his will is worked out’. He comes close to the view of John Calvin (1509-64) who taught double predestination in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Calvin held that God only chooses to save some people (the elect) because He predestines some to heaven and others to hell. Unfortunately for Dr Ho, very few modern Calvinists still uphold this doctrine because it creates a wholly inaccurate and cruel image of God. Actually, the simple reason why God allows evil is that if He did not, then a lot of good would be lost. To quote St Thomas again:
Hence many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to exist; for fire would not be generated if air was not corrupted, nor would the life of a lion be preserved unless the ass were killed…
Also, contrary to Ms Chua and Dr Ho’s opinions, evil does not show the limits of God’s omnipotence or omnibenevolence. Again, the reverse is true. As St Augustine of Hippo (354-430) explains, God is ’so omnipotent and good that he can bring good even out of evil’.
Edmond Eh Kim Chew
i’m so angry i could explode.
but at the same time, i’m stunned into silence by the ignorance and narrowmindedness.
what is wrong with these people?
Tym:
Thank you. That meant alot to me.
so omnipotent and good that he can bring good even out of evil - Just because he can does not mean that he does. And if he doesn’t, he is not omnipotent and good. QED.
“For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?” - Romans 3:7
I hate to admit it, but you’re a smartass when it come to writing.
Keep up the good work!
Hey, update please!
Just wondering has someone already forwarded Edmond Eh Kim Chew’s comments to UNAIDS? He should not be quoting them and telling falsehoods in their name!
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