[pointyhats]

I know the differences, probably more than you realise.

I presented a hypothesis, which you can turn into a theory by sitting outside ASDA for a bit with a clipboard and a copy of SPSS. My suggestion was that you should try it.

[dalke]

Your original statement was "the maternity grant (until yanked by the government) was used to buy designer gear for the mother, ..."

That it's happened at least once, I have no doubt. But I think you mean to use the phrase "was used to buy" to mean that it happens often enough to base a policy decision upon.

The useful questions are "how often does it happen?" and more importantly "did yanking the policy lead to overall improved infant mortality rates?"

Those cannot be answered by "sitting outside ASDA [in Feltham or Hounslow] for a bit." As an extreme example, even if 100% of the people in those two places immediately pop into an off-license, use the money to buy liquor, walk outside, and pour it down the drain, you would need to see if that pattern is the same across the country.

In this extreme example, it might be that 0% of the rest of the country misuses their funds. There are 254,00 people in the London Borough of Hounslow. There are 62 million people in the United Kingdom. If no one else misused those funds, then an overall misuse rate of 0.4% across the entire country is rather good, and the appropriate policy decision would be to understand what is special about Hounslow and how that one region might be improved.

Thus, doing as you suggest would not provide sufficient information to establish an answer for my first question, much less my second.

While you write "Some things are blatantly obvious if you peel your eyes occasionally and observe humanity.", it's very hard to "peel your eyes" and see things when you aren't there.

How many cases of infant mortality have you seen?

[pointyhats]

I agree entirely.

I did not state it was citable or sound, but an observation.

The observation/hypothesis is valuable as it's the starting point for a discussion.

Presenting the extreme is disingenuous.

The answer to the correctness of my argument is neither yes or no - it is simply mu.

[brazzy]

Then you should know that your hypothesis remains unsupported by any data until that is done, and that it's not the job of people who doubt your hypothesis to do so.

Apart from that, the location itself would introduce a bias, and I'm curious how exactly you would recognize women in the process of spending the maternity grant.

[pointyhats]

Yes it is unsupported. I admit that. But it's clearly observable. I'm sure many people here observe it regularly.

You specify the problem the wrong way around.

The women got pregnant because the maternity grant was offered as is a cosy council house and a career of being pregnant. That's how it works here.

When you have three children like myself you spend a lot of time around parents and maternity units and the general consensus of the particular social stereotype is that a baby is a meal ticket and the £500 would go nicely on some Uggs and enough Silk Cut to get you through the first 9 months after it's born.

You can see the results of the maternity grant spending at ASDA which is basically the decked out in designer brand children being pushed around in their expensive buggy but the mother is buying £50 worth of cigarettes and her other three children are consigned to economy grade processed meat wrapped in breadcrumbs and some reconstituted potato product and some panda pops as their entire diet.

It's not down to poverty: just selfish idiocy, apathy and a complete lack of morals and ethics.

[vacri]

I'm sorry, but since your comment is entirely unsupported by a citation explaining philosophical fallacies or similar, your criticism remains unsupported, and hence it's not the job of the person you're responding to to satisfy your demand.

What a vicious circle we create by demanding citations for any claim.

[gmac]

Because ASDA in Feltham or Hounslow is a probability sample of humanity? I don't think so.