I suppose my subject title would have been better named:

Criticisms on Steve Saleirs critique of Levitts theory." but since that would be too long and not readily comprehensible, I chose the one I did.

Sailer starts with underestimating the reader by saying:

"I suspect that both the readers who have stuck it out with us this far ..."

Not a very denigrating remark, but yet.

One of the more bizarre statements from Sailers 1st piece:

"So, let's look at just black males born in 1975 to 1979. Since their mothers were having abortions at three times the white rate, that should have driven down their youth murder rate. Instead, from 1984 to 1993 the black male youth homicide rate grew an apocalyptic 5.1 times.

I don’t get it. Does he really expect us to believe that NINE year old black boys (born in 1975, would be nine by 1984) commited 5.1 times as much crime?

This aside from the fact that he takes unmatching periods, a four year period of births compared with a NINE year period of criminal records.

Also, are his figures really correct?

Then onto a misrepresentation of the facts:

"In this essay, I'll step back and explain why this straightforward insight might not actually work in practice."

Here, Sailer suggests that the abortion-reduces-crime-theory is more something of a gut feeling, common sense thing. He wilfully ignores that Levitt supports his theory with facts and figures, empirical evidence. Empirical evidence, is that what you see by just looking at it (and counting it)

"The widespread assumption that your theory must be correct reveals just how many people deep down believe, whether they admit it publicly or not, that "certain people" are just permanently more incorrigible than others."

Let me translate: Sailer implies that whites, of both the left and rightwing persuasion, think that blacks are more criminal than whites. I don’t make this up, since its strenghtened by his boast that he is very politically uncorrect. Of course, the thinking that says that blacks are more criminal than whites reveals his own prejudices, which he tries to make acceptable by saying that they are "widespread" Of course, Sailer does not stop to think that, blacks are more poor, and that poverty has been historically and worldwide explanation for higher crime. (However, that does not explain why richer white Republican politicians have a higher crime rate than their poorer black Democrat counterparts)

Mr. Sailer reveals his muddy thinking even more with the next sentence: "And agnostics on the subject realized that while disentangling nature and nurture was extremely difficult (only with the advent of twin and adoption studies have we made much progress), the precise mechanism mattered surprisingly little". Pfeeew! Is he really suggesting that cause does not matter? Well, if you don't really care to prevent or change a phenomenon, then not, I suppose. But he fails to see that the whole nature v nurture debate is about determining which factor is more important and change society by addressing that factor.

Another example of muddy thinking:

"Its (legalizing abortion, bp) cultural influence would therefore have mounted. Just compare the working-class black music of the '60s (e.g., Motown) with the underclass gangsta rap of the late '80s, which spread the lethal bust-a-cap code"

Wow! Talking about jumping to conclusions! In the sixties, virtually all black adults had had personal experience of public racism, often condoned by state officials such as judges and sheriffs. This would explain the demure attitude of blacks in public. Privately, invisible to white culture this was another matter. In the 80s, this private culture started to emerge, since now the large-scale, state-sponsored white oppression had dissappeared.

Further evidence of Sailers unability to see the world through other eyes :

"Finally, even more speculatively, but also more frighteningly, the revolution in social attitudes that excused terminating the unborn may also have helped persuade violent youths that they could be excused for terminating the born."

"Lets kill someone, since it's okayed by abortion all around?" This is only so when one sees abortion as murder. I will concede that it is seen as thus by christian media, but not by the public in general (and not the SC, still), however much the neo-christians want us to believe that. Also, I highly doubt that a black youth holding up a liquor store will think "My siblings have all been aborted, so it's okay for me to shoot the Korean shopowner", rather than "I need cash, let's go and get it from the Asian, he's a racist anyway"

Muddy thinking part ... I lost count

"Still any realistic theory about abortion and crime must deal with the massive correlation between violence and race." Yes. Of course. Sure. I can ALSO totally show you a massive correlation between the sale of ice-cream and the no.of drownings. Even a bigger correlation between the sale of deodorants and the no. of drownings.

In those cases, Sailer would have totally disregarded the advent of summer as the underlying cause.

As does Sailer disregard the socio-economic position of blacks in usa society. No other clearly visibly distinguishable group has been so systematically been banned from main stream life in the usa, as African-Americans. All other groups came here by choice, with their cultural identity. Even though Jews were virtually forced to americanize their names (their label-identity, this didn't rob them of their religion (their core-identity). Aframs didn't have that choice. Jewish suffering in the us has only been worse than African-American suffering if you consider not being asked for membership of the country club, worse than enslavement, splitting up families, beatings and whippings.