[ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 78, Issue 47

[Keith Henson]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 8:54 AM,  Post Futurist <p0stfuturist at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> "Given a large enough number, and if even a very
> small fraction will result in an unexpected pregnancy, and some fraction of
> those will choose to go to term.? If even one extra birth occurs per million
> participants, the environmental impact will far outweigh the savings of a
> million people turning off electricity for an hour.
>>Spike"
>
> You can back this up; after the great power?failure of '65, and other "blackouts" the birthrate ticked up. So tell, say,?fundamentalists that, and they will never suggest turning off the electricity again-- even for half an hour periods.

"As often happens, however, people formed predetermined conclusions
and then tried to fit the data to them. The birth rate nine months
after the blackout did not show a statistically significant difference
from the rate of birth recorded during the same period in any of the
five previous years. "

http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/blackout.asp

Keith