I issued a preprint "The origin of a chart indicating the likelihood of conception linearly declining with age: a literature survey" on my official website and SocArXiv:
In this preprint I discuss the process of fabricating a graph of a woman's fertility linearly declining along with age.
This graph is a compound of figures from two books, but the figures for the downward curve of "Likelihood of getting pregnant" are groundless. I concluded that the curve was a fabrication and am afraid that this graph has been used to exaggerate age-related fertility decline and to affect people's life plans.
I am collecting information about cases of using the graph. I found it on many websites featuring fertility issues, such as BabyCenter.com, besides some journal articles and books (listed on http://b.hatena.ne.jp/remcat/86786352/ and http://remcat.tsigeto.info/search/?q=86786352).
If you have witnessed the graph (and any case of using unscientific representations to exaggerate fertility decline) elsewhere, could you let me know via comments to this blog article or e-mail (http://tsigeto.info/office.html)?
I am also inviting papers for a session I organize for the XIX World conference of Sociology (July 2018 in Toronto), "Reproductive Rights Under Commercialized and Politicized Medical Discourses." This session is planned to include studies of such kind of fake knowledge, as well as a wide range of theme on medical/biological discourses and the reproductive rights.
- http://d.hatena.ne.jp/remcat/20170418/isa18
- https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2018/webprogrampreliminary/Session9145.html
Deadline is September 30.
