Why quibble, virginity pledges don really do any harm, and research results are rarely conclusive anyway, so why not support pledge programs?
We disagree. Programs that give false hope, that compete for funds and time, and that might prevent other more effective programs from being implemented, can cause harm to individuals and communities. True, research results from a single study are rarely conclusive, and we make this point throughout the chapter. But some results are more convincing than others, and over time results across good studies can cumulatively address important questions about program effectiveness to a pragmatically useful degree. The primary conclusions from the Bearman and Brueckner study, we believe, violate basic foundations of logical scientific inference. We do not believe this particular study contributes constructively to the cumulative research pool, nor that its influence on national policy has been harmless.
