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Article Title:	Rioters Are NOT 'Scum'! They Are The Fatherless
Author of reported comment:	Kenneth Nesbitt
Comment Date:	00:48 on Aug 26 2011
Comment:	Thank you Hal. I do not dispute that causal and correlational 'can' be working in parallel, but I do get concerned when an apparent cause is actually no more than correlational. I do not know what the statistics are for the rioters being 'fatherless', I'm not sure that, when the original article was written, those facts were known, hence my caution. I am willing to have my views challenged by statistical facts backed by robust investigation but too often, correlations have been used to suggest cause where none exists. Rock and Roll was blamed for moral breakdown as far back as the '50s. Cause or correlation? The examples are many. I just have difficulty accepting that it is fatherless that is the cause. I believe other social factors are FAR more likely to be the triggers and fatherless is yet one more consequence of those factors. My work in Psychology and Counselling has never yet yielded fatherlessness as a cause for inappropriate behaviour. Chaotic lifestyles, abuse, poverty, social exclusion - yes, but if I went down the route of fatherlessness I'd be unlikely to identify the source of the problems, which are usually FAR more complex. Fatherlessness, for me, would perhaps, in certain limited circumstances, be one possible indicator of problems to be further investigated. Nevertheless, I think this a very useful discourse.

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