Sarah Palin: Pregnancy and Probability

4/27/2011

My son, 2 weeks old, neonatal intensive care. The incidence of his complication was 1 in 2,000 live births.

In response to the first pediatric specialist interview I conducted about this mystery, I received two insightful, intelligent, and delightful comments from a reader named “V”. She agreed to share her math skills with us on a broader scale by allowing me to post her work here. As someone who can barely add, I am intrigued by V’s work. And as someone who wants to embrace all possibilities in this sordid tale, I welcome this wonderful way of analyzing the data. Take it away, V.:

One question that has come up several times, in one form or another, has been: what are the odds? I thought it might be interesting to look at various independent data points that we seem to have in Sarah’s story, and assign odds to them, and then apply a little math, in order to determine how likely her story actually is. This is going to be chock full of assumptions and I’m sure the rest of you will have plenty to contribute to make the math better.

Data point/assumption 1: Trig is a Down syndrome baby. As many have noted, an older woman is much more likely than a younger woman to have a DS baby. On the other hand, a younger woman is much more likely to produce a baby. 80% of all DS babies are born to women under 35. So we’ll give Sarah a 20% chance of being Trig’s mom here (I know that this could be refined, either using conditional probability, which for various reasons I don’t want to apply, or better data regarding the probabilities, which I don’t have). But I think it’s important to remember that it’s simply a lot harder for women in their forties to produce babies at all (especially when they may have had their tubes seared shut, or when they’re grown-ups who should really understand birth control).

Data point/assumption 2: Sarah did not appear pregnant until her 7th month (unlike her daughter Bristol, who not only looked pregnant in the one picture which I saw of her, but mysteriously disappeared for the relevant period). I think this is rather unlikely – but there seem to be instances of it happening, even with women who have been pregnant before. So I’m assigning a 10% chance here, which I actually think is rather generous to Sarah, given how extremely odd the photos are. We’re down to 0.2 x 0.1 = 0.02 – a 2% chance that the child is hers.

Data point/assumption 3: Sarah did not tell anyone she was pregnant before then. Well, if she were faking it, she certainly wouldn’t tell anyone. However, I can imagine other reasons for not telling anyone. First, she had an important position, and she might not want to reduce her work effectiveness with a pregnancy. Second, knowing that it was a DS baby makes it less of an occasion of joy, especially if there is a chance that the baby won’t survive. So I’m not going to count this either for her or against her. We’re still at 2%.

Data point/assumption 4: Sarah did not behave pregnant before then, being seen drinking coffee and with no evidence of going to the doctor for extra visits. It’s possible that with a baby with Ds, that she saw no point in taking care of her body for him. On the other hand I think it’s odd that no one ever mentioned any behavior that would make them think, at least retroactively – Of course! Preggers! Especially as her appointments would have been generally visible to everyone on her staff, or at least there would have been occasions when people would wonder, hey, where was she Friday afternoon? Whereas poor Bristol apparently had a car accident in front of an OBGYN office. So again, being very generous to Sarah (and rather hard on everyone around her) I’m going to say 75%. We go from 0.02 x 0.75 = 0.015, or 1.5%

Data point/assumption 5: The flight attendants during Sarah’s wild ride claim that they did not notice that she was pregnant. Not just not 8 months pregnant, but pregnant at all! Now, if she was showing as much as she was in the Gusty photo, this seems really unlikely. Or if she took off an empathy belly, of course she wouldn’t appear pregnant either. However, I feel compelled to suggest another possibility: they noticed that she was pregnant but let her fly anyway, and then later, to protect themselves, said they didn’t notice anything. So on this point I’m not quite sure what to think – how to assess the odds. I’ll give it 50%, but additional input would be appreciated. That gets us down to .015 x 0.5 = 0.0075 or 0.75% (not 75%, but one hundredth of that)

Data point/assumption 6: the rest of the wild ride. Although I think it’s extremely peculiar, I’ll listen to the medical opinion you’ve presented here, and not go up or down. Still 0.75

Data point/assumption 7: Internet scrubbing. Many folks have mentioned that after the selection of Sarah as McCain’s VP candidate, pictures of Sarah disappeared, and that even kids’ computers and Myspace accounts were scrubbed. Although I could believe that the kids probably had indiscreet remarks on drugs and drinking, I can’t understand deleting general photos of Sarah. Something to hide? Sure looks like it, especially when you think that the McCain campaign would generally be interested in showing more rather than less of the photogenic Sarah officiating as governor … we’ll reduce her probability of telling the truth here by 50%. So that’s 0.0075 x 0.5 = 0.00375 or 0.375%

Data point/assumption 8: the letter from CBJ. This is a difficult item to assess. CBJ’s letter certainly indicates that Sarah gave birth to Trig. So for Sarah’s story to be false, CBJ would have to have lied. How likely is that? I have no idea. There are strange aspects to CBJ’s letter and behavior. Why on earth would she have OK’d the ride back from Texas? Heck, I can’t understand why she OK’d the ride TO Texas! Why was CBJ’s letter released on the eve of the election and not well before? Is it possible that there was a great deal of pressure on her? I’m sure that the letter was scrutinized by the McCain-Palin team – was she forced to say something which wasn’t true? Why did she need a lawyer when responding to questions from the ADN? This is all extremely odd, and it’s not as if we’ve never heard of unethical doctors, so I have some real doubts about CBJ. On the other hand, I must say that if Sarah was not pregnant, and all CBJ did was to lie about it, I actually respect her more. She did no medical harm in this situation and actually protected her patient’s privacy – probably ethically to her more important than telling the truth to the public. However, because I want to give her all benefits of doubts, I will double the chances that Sarah is telling the truth. So now it’s 0.00375 x 2 = 0.0075 or 0.75%

Data point/assumption 9: no release of a birth certificate. This I can’t understand at all. If Sarah is the mother, releasing the birth certificate would effectively quash all rumors. The only reason not to release it, other than Sarah not being the mother, would be if Todd were not the father – which I think is really unlikely. So here I have to give Sarah a 25% of telling the truth (generous to Sarah on my part): 0.0075 x 0.25 = 0.001875, or 0.1875%.

This is all very rough, but it ends up with Sarah having a less than 2 out 1000 chance of being Trig’s biological mother.

An interesting exercise for an afternoon – thanks for reading! UPDATE: Gryphen reminds me that he did a post on The Odds last year. It's a great read, as always, and free of numbers, which means I can wrap my tiny brain around it! Check it out!

And thank YOU, “V” for sharing your skills and time with us. Math wizards, weigh in!

GhostbusterTX

4/27/2011 03:31:06 am

OK, I'll put on my mathematician hat...

First I've got to speak to the logic of this type of analysis. Assigning rough numbers by guess and by golly to the likelihood of these events is a <i>rhetorical</i> trick, and for the purposes of argument, it's fine, if possibly misleading: it is important to keep in mind that putting a number on an opinion or a guess does not turn it into a fact.

Second, when you start doing calculations on numbers the results will never be more precise than the numbers you begin with. If the term "significant digits" rings a bell, you may know what I am talking about. In general, the more unsure you are about the precision and reliability of the input, the more wiggle room you need to leave yourself in the answer. In many cases, as you proceed through the calculations, the error propagates to the point where it swamps the meaningfulness of any result you have numerically calculated.

I have more to say about one of the premises/ assumptions which I will post separately to facilitate discussion.

MariaT

4/27/2011 03:43:44 am

Laura, have you read Audrey's post about the CBJ letter on Palin's Deception? http://palindeception.blogspot.com/2009/02/purloined-letter.html

And the analysis of that letter: http://www.palindeception.com/pdfcbjpost/analysis.pdf

Oh, and the letter itself, with thanks to Regina of Palingates: http://www.box.net/shared/5nih93abco

4/27/2011 03:44:55 am

Of course there's little to no precision in this analysis. However, the magnitudes are probably in the ballpark. When one realizes how many unlikely events have to come together for Sarah's story to be true, it sheds light on the very high probability that they are not true.

Ennealogic link

4/27/2011 04:18:43 am

Regarding Datapoint/Assumption 9, there is another very good reason for Sarah's refusal to show a birth certificate. Her story hinges on the date of birth as April 18, 2008. Even if Sarah and Todd adopted Trig (making it truthful for them to assert that they are his parents), the DOB if different from 4-18 would put the lie to the entire reckless ride story.

Lilybart

4/27/2011 04:36:29 am

If she were the mother, Todd would be listed as father because he is the husband legally and unless someone sues for custody or something, Todd will be listed as father no matter what.

Laura Novak link

4/27/2011 05:01:28 am

Maria, yes, I read those a while ago. What makes you bring the letter up now? The probability issue or something else? Let us know!

GhostbusterTX

4/27/2011 05:11:06 am

What are the odds, given that Trig has DS, that his mom is 44 year old Sarah Palin?

It's actually harder than it sounds to get a handle on this probability. The easiest numbers to find have to do with the odds that a pregnant woman of whatever age has conceived a DS baby, which is not necessarily an illuminating statistic.

I found some charts and tables at this website which, while not providing all the numbers we would ideally like to have to figure this one out, are helpful. Figure 3 is what I'll be looking at for the most part.
http://www.down-syndrome.org/reports/304/

O.K.
Let's say your a betting person.

Q. You are shown an obviously pregnant woman, age 44. Is she carrying a DS baby?
A. Don't bet on it.

Q. But you are told she absolutely would never have an abortion (yeah, I know, white-out, but bear with me here...).
A. Still, do not bet on it. 1 in 35 chance that her baby is DS == 34 in 35 chance that her baby is not DS.

Q. Same questions, with 17 year old.
A. Do you take me for a fool?

Q. Ok then, let's put the 17 year old and the 44 year old side by side. Both obviously pregnant, neither would choose to terminate under any circumstances. Would you bet that one of them is carrying a DS baby?
A. No. See above.

Q. Let's try another tack. Put the two women side by side again, *both* obviously pregnant, but this time you are told that ONE of them is carrying a DS baby. Which one?
A. The 44 year old, duh. Look at the chart on the Wikipedia page for DS, the teenager only has something like a 1 in a thousand chance - compared to 1 in 35 for the older woman. This difference is measured in orders of magnitude, dude.

Q. Let's switch gears. You are told there is a baby. Is its birth mother over 40?
A. Don't take the bet!

Q. OK, how about betting that the birth mother is under 18?
A. Other tail of the normal curve, but same answer - don't bet on it!

Q. Would you bet that the birth mother is EITHER under 18 or over 40?
A. No. The vast majority of babies are born to women in their 20s and 30s.

Q. So let's say there are just two candidates for the mom - a teenager and a woman over 40. Who do you bet on?
A. OK, this a bit more challenging. In the US, more babies are born to 15-19 year old teens than to women age 40-45. by a factor of three or four. But confounding factors like access and willingness to use birth control, abortion, and prenatal care make it hard to apply those stats to particular individual cases. So if I have to choose I'd put money on the teen, but no more than I'm willing to lose.

Q. Does it make a difference if I tell you the baby was born with DS?
A. Here's where that Figure 3 chart I mention above might help. Not many DS babies are born to teens, or to women in their 40s. There do seem to be a lot more woman conceiving DS babies in their early forties, especially in recent years, but most of these pregnancies are terminated. If that possibility is taken out of the equation, then it is somewhat more likely for the DS baby in question to have a 44 year old mom than to have a 17 year old mom. BUT, I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

Q. So if you are shown a DS baby, should you assume the mom is older?
A. NO. Most DS babies are born to women in their twenties.

Q. If you are shown a DS baby and told the mom does not believe in abortion, should you assume the mom is older?
A. Now the odds are clearly favoring a mom in her thirties.

Q. Why the discrepancy?
A. Women in their thirties and forties are much more likely to have prenatal testing done, and at least in England and Wales (where the data I was just looking at was gathered) a DS diagnosis leads to termination more often than not.

Q. Does this tell us anything about who is likely to be Trig's birth mother?
A. Not really. If the choice is between Sarah Palin at age 44 and her teenage daughter, both are in the running with relatively similar odds, and there are too many variables having to do with behavior and access to or willingness to use birth control to have ANY useful insight from this kind of analysis. The critical point is that Trig having DS is not in the least evidence that he was born to a 44 year old, or was significantly more likely to have been born to a 44 year old than to a younger woman.

Hope this helps...

GhostbusterTX

4/27/2011 05:28:36 am

Here's the thing. Improbable events can happen. Strings of improbable events can happen. Long strings of improbable events can happen.

Sarah claims that a long string of such improbable events happened to her, and that should certainly raise eyebrows and provoke questions, even if we are willing to take her word for what happened, or at least for any particular detail of the story.

What really gets her in trouble, though, is that you simply cannot have mutually exclusive versions of reality all be true. Laura, you did a great job in the comments following the post on the "pediatric specialist" laying out how taking one piece of the puzzle at a time things can look ok, but try putting them all together and it all falls into inconsistency.

Reminds me of the M.C. Escher drawings of the house with the crazy stairs...
http://www.mcescher.com/Shopmain/ShopEU/facsprints-nieuw/data/1000/7%20Relativity.jpg

Virginia Voter

4/27/2011 05:32:19 am

Hi Laura,

I don't know how new you are to the Babygate discussion, but I've been following this for two and a half years. I appreciate all your thorough research, but bottom line is, any woman who has been pregnant and given birth (especially more than once) or any OB/GYN will tell you that Sarah's Trig pregnancy and wild ride is a bunch of horseshit. NOT ONE of these reporters or so called witnesses are women who have given birth.

I knew as soon as I heard the birth story and started looking at pictures of Sarah during her invisible pregnancy that she was lying, and so so all the other mothers on these blogs. Her story defies biology and sanity...so either Sarah was not pregnant, or she should be locked up for endangering her fetus. It's lose/lose for Sarah as far as I'm concerned. I could care less about anything else except to now expose her for the lying grifting fraud that she is.

GhostbusterTX

4/27/2011 05:37:41 am

One more thing, on data point 5 - I thought the statement from the airlines was worded "the stage of her pregnancy was not apparent." That could mean anything from "no idea she was pregnant" to "didn't see the baby hanging half-way out her ya-ya." Seemed to me to be strictly ass-coverage on the part of the airline, rather than any sort of reliable eyewitness account. My guess is that lawyers had a bigger part to play in that statement than any actual observations by the flight crew.

4/27/2011 05:59:39 am

A couple of points: given that a 44 year old woman is pregnant, she is far more likely than a 17 year old to produce a DS baby. However, I don't accept the first premise as a given - that she was pregnant. Hence I went with the more global probability of "80% babies born to mothers under 35," which is the statistic provided by a website on this subject.

There was an objection to significant digits. My final answer, "less than 2 out of a thousand" has only one significant digit. I don't generally round while in the middle of a series of calculations.

I agree that data point/assumption 5 has many interpretations (notice that I mentioned this myself). The reason I did not ignore it completely is because it is a potentially independent source - although it could be influenced by SP, it's certainly more removed from her than her doctor - and that a flight crew could have multiple pairs of eyes, and hence multiple sources which could have confirmed or denied. I'd be interested if anyone has traveled while visibly pregnant and if they could recount their experiences with respect to flight crews.

honestyingov

4/27/2011 06:00:50 am

Playing with the numbers is sort of interesting as sort of a game. But lets get down to the simple BASIC Facts of what we do KNOW. Ask Yourself...?

" What are the odds?".. that a 3 day old premmie baby, (with various other medical conditions as well) would be healthy enough to be taken to work 3 days later. 1 in a Million?.. or more..? It would NEVER happen. Ask any Mom, or Doctor.

And if you can find a baby under ANY Dr's care that would ALLOW that to happen than maybe their license needs to be revoked for being negligent.( Dr.CBJ)The reporters should at least ASK the Doctor why she is so Negligent, maybe? That's a ' commonsense conservative question' like Sarah likes to say.

Add to the ' fishiness ' factor that all these reporters can't seem to smell ( Do they even have noses?.. someone check please )is that a a premmie with Trigs condition would and should have been in an NICU. ( maybe for weeks..?)
And how could he have been. There is NONE in Wasilla,( where she said he was born, allegedly)HELLO?? And he is being passed around in the Hall with Chuckie Heath hours later.

As part of her ' story ' that she tells in " Going Rogue" and elswhere she has NEVER mentioned that Trig was under any care at any NICU. THAT is not a small detail you overlook... in Her book.No talk of her going to visit him in NICU and such. Those pull at your heart-strings additions that would make her look so Motherly. Maybe she should have waited a week or so to work the NICU story in there?
Ohhh.. but that won't work either. There is NONE in Wasilla. Foiled again.

LisanTx

4/27/2011 06:28:56 am

Audrey wrote an interesting three-part post on statistics at Palin's Deceptions. She compared the odds of a 17 year old vs. an over 40 year old getting pregnant at all and then further, carrying the baby to term.

some snippets:
**************************
In other words - the seventeen year old's chances of getting pregnant in a given month are 15 times higher.

But that's not the end of the story because now, the much higher rates of miscarriage come into play.
********************

...[the]likelihood of a pregnancy carried to term in a 17-year old woman is 29 times greater than that of a 43 year old.

**********************
http://palindeception.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-lie-with-statistics-response-to.html

DebinOH

4/27/2011 06:29:40 am

honestyingov -

"[" What are the odds?".. that a 3 day old premmie baby, (with various other medical conditions as well) would be healthy enough to be taken to work 3 days later. 1 in a Million?.. or more..? It would NEVER happen. Ask any Mom, or Doctor.]"

You are assuming SP even asked her doctor if she could take him out at three days old. She does not listen and I doubt she even asked. So I don't think you could do or say anything against CBJ.

"[someone check please )is that a a premmie with Trigs condition would and should have been in an NICU. ( maybe for weeks..?)]"

If you read Laura's other post the specialist clearly said that Down babies are specially hardy and the heart problems (if any) tend to show up later. My babies were born early and weighed less than SP (37ish wks) and other than having no sucking reflex and jaundice all they did was sleep a lot for the first month or so.

So if he was over 6 pounds I don't think he would have needed to be in NICU unless he had other complications.

Now that doesn't answer why she bypassed Anchorage where they were much more prepared to deal with problems. Nor does it address the "wild" ride.

After researching SP there is NOTHING that she doesn't do differently than almost anyone. The percentage of anything SP says is less than 50% so there could be a smidgen chance she had him just the way she said she did.

Gryphen link

4/27/2011 06:35:14 am

Interesting. I did a similar post a little over a year ago: http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2010/03/sarah-palin-pregnancy-what-are-odds.html

Once you look at the odds there really is NO way that Palin could be the mother.

curiouser

4/27/2011 06:44:20 am

Laura - Your son is so beautiful! The photo warmed my heart.

I don't have the expertise to evaluate the numbers but I do love the concept. The likelihood of a hoax seems greater because there are so many questions about her story.

There are some inaccuracies in the data points/assumptions. I apologize if I'm being picky and missing the point. Hopefully, my comments are helpful.

#4 'seen drinking coffee'

I believe this idea comes from the Feb. '08 video of Sarah and reporter walking from the mansion to the capitol. The reporter brings Sarah a cup of coffee but Sarah is never seen drinking it.

(starts at 3:53)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F__gznlQNI

#5 "flight attendants during Sarah’s wild ride claim that they did not notice that she was pregnant. Not just not 8 months pregnant, but pregnant at all!"

From Alaska Airlines: "The STAGE of her pregnancy was not apparent by observation. She did not show any signs of distress," Boren said. [emphasis added]

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2008/04/22/382864/palins-child-diagnosed-with-down.html#ixzz1KkpwJwFb

#8 "Why on earth would she have OK’d the ride back from Texas?"

Sarah definitely gave the impression in some interviews that her doctor OK'd the flight but she never even asked for a medical OK. Dr. CBJ was interviewed by the ADN, same link as above. "Palin did not ask for a medical OK to fly, the doctor said.”

"Why did she need a lawyer when responding to questions from the ADN?"

I don't think this has ever been documented. Where did the idea of the lawyer originate?

Again, my apologies if I missed the point. It's hard to keep the story straight, especially, when Sarah has so many version of it.

Sarah should ultimately be held responsible for the legendary aspects of the 'wild ride'. She could end the speculation by releasing her medical records.

Laura Novak link

4/27/2011 06:46:18 am

Thanks, Gryphen. I've updated with a link to your post!

While we all can agree that taking a 3-day-old infant to work was crazy, remember that the first doc I interviewed said there was no reason for it. It struck him as "showy." That could mean: Look, I'm so strong, I can birth a baby and return to work. Or it could mean: Look, this really is MY baby. Not someone else's.

The doctor further pointed out that while Ds heart problems can be confirmed at birth, they often don't become problematic till a month out. Witness the Ds foundation website saying that a cardiac eval. should take place in first month.

Clearly Trig was breathing room air and could maintain his body temperature. At 6 pounds, not all babies are in isolettes. Not all babies have to be in NICU's b/c they are born at 35 weeks.

But yes, Honesty N Govt., it's all very fishy, isn't it. And it's the perfect story b/c the doctor can't talk and no one can reveal documents. Except Mrs. Palin.

And for the rest of you...your math boggles my mind. It's excellent. Good work sussing this out from an analytical angle.

4/27/2011 07:12:42 am

"Drinking coffee" - it wasn't just drinking coffee, but *any* pregnant-related behavior that her staff and others might have noticed and applied retroactively. Nothing was noticed whatsoever - they were all taken by surprise. Instead of someone going, "of course, that's where you were last Tuesday," they're going "I had no idea she was packing," and wondering about her easy gait in high heels in the snow while (allegedly) six months along. However, I was extremely generous towards Sarah here and only multiplied by 0.75 in this case - a mere reduction of only 25% of the probability of her story.

As to Alaska Airlines, I take your point with respect to the actual wording of what they said - but I'd still like to know what other heavily pregnant women have experienced while attempting to fly before changing the number I used in my assumption here. Or maybe they all have enough sense not to fly while in labor?

The doctor and ADN - ADN interviewed CBJ in an attempt to quash the story once and for all. But instead of being open - and shutting the lid on the story - she showed up with a lawyer and was extremely cagey. I've seen this in several places.

As to another point from Ghostbuster in TX, I agree that Sarah's mutually exclusive versions of events *should* be enough to get reporters digging (as should the odd photographic evidence and many other things). But reporters seem to be fatigued or cowed or indifferent to the contradictory statements of Sister Sarah - and some of the statements are rather "soft" or "touchy-feely" - I think it's a good exercise to look at the big picture with respect to the likeliness of her story.

I also think it's quite likely that Sarah and Todd have legally adopted Trig - which would be admirable and commendable. But that is not what is being questioned.

DebinOH

4/27/2011 07:58:27 am

v - I think the probability that they adopted this baby is pretty good considering everything we know (but man a lot of people would have to be in on this I would think). The only thing weird about this is why does he look so much like Piper and the rest of the girls (+ the same coloring as Todd & Sarah)? Hell, he looks more like the rest of them than Track does and that is a whole other can of worms). I guess you could answer that Trig is related to someone in the family but does most of her brother/sisters look like her & Todd?

Why would they want to adopt any baby (let's not even add the health problems) when they knew she was being checked out for a VP position? While the religious right Franklin Graham types like babies I am not so sure that they would have wanted her out there because most evangelicals/born-agains think women should be home with their babies. Not only that a lot of them do not think women should be leaders.

This did become a great asset later when everyone was scared to death McCain would never get those votes because then she didn't have an abortion. That is what they relate to most + Catholics love that too. Had McCain not been the nominee is it possible she wouldn't have been picked? It is odd though that she chose to let everyone know she was pregnant one day after his nomination.

Would they have had enough time to think that McCain was her best choice so they planned this in advance? Of course, let's face it Romney wasn't too popular with the evangelical/born-again population so I guess that does give her even more reason to plan this out.

The only problem with this is everything I know about SP I cannot imagine her ever adopting a special needs baby. Could I see her doing it for the election - yes! But what if she hadn't been chosen? There would have been no book tours nor all the money she has now. Could anyone really see her taking care of him for the rest of her life? I can't.

It boggles the mind..........

Laura Novak link

4/27/2011 08:00:42 am

Ghostbuster, man you've got a good brain! Better than mine. It takes more than just eyeballs to look at this story. People with mathematical skill sets can analyze this on a level most of us can't reach. And how fascinating to think that any one element, if removed from this story, could really clarify the issues (ie, pregnant teen out of school, speech in another state, pro-life platform.) But it's the messy soup of circumstances that keeps this going. That, and Mr. and Mrs. Palin's refusal to finally set the record straight.

frostyAK

4/27/2011 08:00:45 am

My courses in statistics are from last century, so concepts may have changes.

Let's be HORRIBLY over-generous and multiply the already overly generous 0.1875% result by 100. That still gives us less than 20% chance that $P is the BIRTH mother, leaving more than an 80% chance that she is not.

The above still says that statistically it is more than 4 times more probable that she is not the BIRTH mother. We need, as a group, to remember to say BIRTH mother, every time we discuss the subject. If she adopted Trig, then she is his "mother".

Ferry Fey

4/27/2011 08:07:40 am

Another number to consider is that IIRC, Sarah Palin had managed to go about 7 years since her pregnancy with Piper without getting pregnant.

I think Ghostbuster in TX's suggestion that the lawyers had a firm hand in the Alaska Airlines statement is a good one. Don't forget that Sarah Palin's pregnancy had been announced in the newspapers and television news, so it's hardly likely that the staff on the planes didn't know their VIP was said to be quite pregnant.

DebinOH

4/27/2011 08:28:59 am

I wanted to add something:

I just went back and re-read Gryph's post on Immoral Minority. I have read everything the man has posted since Sept. 2008.

What are the odds of no one reporting on this story - period (not including bloggers)? Everyone thought that it was because it was a squeamish thing to talk about (childbirth/woman parts). However if that was true then why in the heck did we have to read about Bill Clinton's sperm. Plus mention blow jobs. Good heavens!

We live in a world where nothing is off limits and my god if a movie star farted three weeks ago we need to hear about it. Want to check out Brittany's hoo ha just find it on line. What about this makes this story off limits? I am shocked that it wasn't in The National Enquirer every week.

Who would ever think the odds that this story would not be reported were one in a zillion? This is almost more odd than any of this whole story!

4/27/2011 09:16:53 am

I think most of us know that the MSM is generally corporate controlled. I was living in Europe when the US started invading Iraq. I would watch CNN International, which was toeing the Bush line - and then switch to NTV, a German station which was pretty dubious wrt the claim of WMD. But they were sister stations, with access to the same information. And I could not convince anyone in the US that there were no WMD in Iraq!

Palin lied (imo) to protect her daughter and her career - certainly nothing as bad as lying to start a war -- just far more entertaining.

Again, this mathematical exercise is not meant to be exact. It's meant to show, on a rough basis, how very improbable her story is. And I think I was extremely generous with my assumptions (Alaska Airlines excepted).

And there's information I'm not including. Gryphen has an interview with a woman who allegedly massaged Sarah when she was allegedly 6-7 months pregnant ... and noticed nothing.

curiouser

4/27/2011 09:53:17 am

v - Thanks for taking the time to answer my concerns.

I think one of the freakiest things about the whole story is: What's the likelihood that Bristol got pregnant at just the right time to provide illogical, yet accepted, proof that Sarah was Trig's birth mother? (really 2 questions)

Laura Novak link

4/27/2011 10:43:05 am

Yes, V brings up the WMD and the media. The New York Times no less. One of the most respected journalists on the planet. And where is she now? I'm just curious.

You ALL bring so much to the table. She didn't actually sip the coffee. Very interesting! Levi saying she wanted to adopt. Oh right! The doctor and her lawyer: where has that been documented?

And the message therapist. Another eye witness whose words further imply something amiss.

I've always wondered: Would Sarah Palin have been pregnant had John McCain not won Super Tuesday?

V: You did a stellar job with these numbers. Thank yoiu for guest posting! Ghostbuster and the rest of you fill in the blanks and remind us that the story has so many layers. Too many layers. It's perfect for anyone trying to throw someone off the scent.

And isn't that perfect for Big Media. Keeps everyone talking about Mrs. Palin without ever landing at a concrete answer.

Thank you all for reading and weighing in.

4/27/2011 11:29:58 am

People who are curious about CBJ and her attitude towards her own letter and her hiding behind counsel when talking to the media can learn more here:

http://palingates.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/revisiting-the-questions-surrounding-trig-palin%E2%80%99s-birth-anything-goes/

And, for curioser: what are the chances that BP got pregnant (again?) in time for this? Personally I think it fits in *perfectly* with what I imagine about this dysfunctional family. B is unhappy and upset about giving up TriG - and not too pleased with her mother. *OR* she is sadly misinformed that you can't get pregnant again so soon... and there are rumors that Levi was actually living with the Palins then ... perhaps to help care for baby TriG? What else is there to do in February in Alaska? What's also true is that we have no birth certificate for Tripp. Push his birth a week later and much of Sarah's credibility vanishes.

But this is my imagination and not my mathematics. I am not assigning any probability to the above.

Fortunately Palin's poll numbers seem to have tanked, so maybe we don't have to worry about her on the national stage.

Does anyone else remember all the magicians who worked with brightly colored handkerchiefs and scarves? That's how I sometimes feel about all this ... that we're watching a show on stage-

Hidto

4/27/2011 11:39:50 am

DebibOH, I have a theory about why media coverage was tamped down quickly.

The McCain campaign staff didn't thoroughly vet Palin. Too dazzled by her winking, maybe.

Once the powers behind the GOP realized something was amiss with the pregnancy story, they had to kill it. Imagine the national reaction if it was widely believed that the GOP ran a candidate who pulled a hoax like that-they'd be a laughingstock, in ruins for a generation.

The part of the whole Wild Ride that scares me most is the media's complicity in not making an issue of Palin's judgement. Do you want a vp with no commonsense, just one melanoma from the red button? Do you want a 2nd in command who either doesn't bother to consult with her advisors (CBJ) or doesn't listen to them, making decisions about matters of state?

Nothing has demonstrated to met that there have been changes in the way media covers these matters. Coverage of Trump shows it is still happening. All the talk is about his words, with little coverage of his track record ruining businesses and being less than transparent.

Banyan

4/27/2011 01:38:04 pm

The Ped. Doc erroneously implied, or left people here with the impression, that Down Syndrome babies were especially hardy compared with babies without DS.

This is simply not true, although DS babies may be hardier than one might think given all their severe congenital anomalies (birth defects) which extend way beyond cardiac to immune issues, severe g-i defects, and, well, defects-- almost everywhere in the body.

In reality, DS children/adults are extremely vulnerable to infection/illness. A good number of them never survive intensive care as newborns.

They do not feed well, or at all. They do not breathe well, or at all, on their own. They do not digest well, or at all, on their own.

And then there are the heart defects...and more...

They usually die early (in their 30 or 40s, generally) of premature Alzheimer's and other premature degenerative diseases.

Now, these stats come from the old days and, perhaps, modern technology can produce different outcomes, but these children remain especially "vulnerable."

Add the preemie factor, and that makes the outcome even worse (and many DS children are born prematurely).

They (preemie+Down) have even higher vulnerability to illness, death, and additional impairment.

VickyE

4/27/2011 03:28:29 pm

Data point/assumption 5.

Sarah Palin was a frequent flyer throughout her third trimester:

Circa March 4: Los Angeles to Anchorage
Circa March 7: Anchorage to Fairbanks
Circa March 9: Fairbanks to Anchorage
Circa March 11: Anchorage to Juneau
Circa March 14: Juneau to Anchorage
Circa March 27: Anchorage to Juneau
Circa April 15: from Juneau to Dallas
April 17: from Dallas to Anchorage

http://palingates.blogspot.com/2011/04/sarah-palins-pregnancy-no-more.html

It seem Palin started to wear the belly at the beginning of April to appear on the Elan Frank video.

Takes the Gutsy photo on April 13 and is pregnant again in Dallas.

Only 3 occasions where she is obviously deceptive(walked around with a fake belly).

I think the airline staff never saw her with the Gutsy belly.

rubbernecking

4/27/2011 03:31:48 pm

I know many have expressed surprise that Palin flew to Texas a month before her announced due date. It appears she also had a trip scheduled for an event in DC on Sat Apr 26, 2008. On the Tuesday after the premature birth of her child, Palin gets an email on her personal account (ExternalEmailgsp) from her asst Kris Perry:

*********Tue 4/22/2008
Currently you are scheduled to depart for DC Friday morning and return late Sunday evening. If you are still planning to go, I looked at some other flight possibilities to shorten the duration of both the travel time and the stay. The event begins at 6pm on Saturday. I could not find any evening flights returning to Alaska after the event.
*********

Why would a woman with a mid-May delivery date have a 4/26 event in DC on her calendar? It must have been very important that she was still considering traveling to DC just a week after the birth of her premature child...

The email is part of the records acquired by press requests for communications between Todd Palin and Alaska officials. The source is here: http://www.crivellawest.net/palin/pdf/1288.pdf. The yahoo account on the CC belongs to Todd Palin.

VickyE

4/27/2011 04:13:04 pm

Data point/assumption 2: Sarah didn't show until the 8th month.

Data point/assumption 3: On March 4 Sarah tells her inner circle staff that she is pregnant via EMAIL. asks for secrecy! she is getting as big as a house!

On March 5 McCain wins the nomination.
And an unfriendly radio show host approached Sarah's office to ask if she is pregnant.

On March 6, because of the leak, Sarah is forced to announce her pregnancy.

DebinOH

4/27/2011 10:43:10 pm

Hidto, I definitely agree with you. I think McCain's people did everything they could to possibly tamp down anything about SP. IF Levi's family is telling the truth (& I see no reason that they would have said this) then McCain's people were at their house and deleted everything from their computers. I do believe I remember seeing a picture of them there when photographers were trying to get pictures of them.

To tell the truth, I am even more suspicious of the media now. It is weird that so many people just completely ignored this. It is like someone went to EVERYONE and told them to shut their mouths. How would this be possible?

Yet at the same time all we heard about was Obama's pastor & Ayers over & over & over again. That video clip of SP getting prayed over (you know keeping all witch craft away from her) was PRICELESS. They all could have had a field day with it. They all could have had a field day with Todd's AIP crap. Dairy gate, trooper gate, and everything else.

Did we hear about trooper gate? A little bit but not really much which is odd. Anything else? Not so much. Could it have been because her children were so out there? I suppose that could be one angle. But when you look at how MSM treats everyone else they don't seem to care about anything.

Add all this into why everyone has been willing to give so much time to the people who wanted to see Obama's birth certificate. Why? According to everyone even HuffPo wouldn't report anything about the people wanting answers about Trig's birthday. This includes the most liberal (according to the repubs) blogs/magazines/papers/news stations. Why? The only one with any guts was Andrew Sullivan.

I am starting to think this even matters more than the birth of Trig even though I want that solved as well. You have to admit that this is just as big as SP's birth. Honestly if it were not the bloggers who talked about SP's failures, etc. none of us would have ever known anything.

None of the odds are in SP's favor but the odds of the media not reporting anything unfavorable or true about the woman are even more odd. That is my story and I am sticking to it;)

barracuda78

4/27/2011 11:08:24 pm

Thanks to all doing work here and other blogs...I have talked with several airflight attendants and made up a scenario that went something like this "oh geez a friend of mine is planning a fleight from Florida to Alaska at 35 weeks pregnant and I suggested to my friend not to fly, what would the airlines say...both flight attendants said "NO WAY", the airlines they fly with would not allow it..I said well, my friend feels she can fly because she is really not showing much...both flight attendants said...we are trained to question anyone we see as possibly a hazard on the flight...one attendant had experienced an international on-flight delivery and the flyer was under 30 weeks pregnant...no reason to believe she would go into labor...but it was extremely messy, you risk your unborn child and you becoming infected, as well as lack of care...an awful experience for other passengers, flight attendants, and the mom and potential child....i say potential because without immediate care a preemie and/or mom may suffer complications that need immediate, life-saving care.

If anyone knows a flight attendant ask out of curiusity....

DebinOH

4/28/2011 12:38:31 am

Well, here is another interesting thing I found on Gryph's site this morning:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/04/28/not-really-breaking-mat-su-regional-hospital-says-trig-palin-was-born-there.aspx

I don't know how to link anything so if this doesn't work just go to Slate and you will find it there.

Well, here go the odds again. What are the odds that the hospital has only ever answered this question once and it is to someone happy to not question anything about all the inconsistencies? Not only that but did he call the hospital in Anchorage also, too? She claims to have given birth there as well.

Where are you v? Figure this into the equation.

4/28/2011 01:46:36 am

Interesting information from both barracuda and deb. I will be flying next week, and if I have an opportunity I will ask a few flight attendants your question!

And, Deb, SP's story is not impossible - just unlikely. However, in your link, the hospital doesn't say when Trig was born. Furthermore, it would be possible to fool a good portion of the hospital staff - only one or two people would need to be in on the hoax.

I also think it's strange that we're getting unofficial confirmation now - why not official confirmation? Where's the BC?

mistah charley, ph.d. link

4/28/2011 02:26:59 am

I've taken courses in probability and statistics (although that was during the last millennium), and also watched all of the Sherlock Holmes TV shows starring Jeremy Brett (although these were made during the last millennium, I saw them on DVD in the last couple of months). I don't think numeric methods are really helpful in solving the Trig Birth Mystery - at least not to most people, including me.

Here's an example of how fiddling with numbers doesn't get you far if you're not a well-trained fiddler. This is taken from Eliezer S. Yudkowsky's "excruciatingly gentle introduction" to conditional probability, "An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem", http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes.

"1% of women at age forty who participate in routine screening have breast cancer. 80% of women with breast cancer will get positive mammographies. 9.6% of women without breast cancer will also get positive mammographies. A woman in this age group had a positive mammography in a routine screening. What is the probability that she actually has breast cancer?

What do you think the answer is? If you haven't encountered this kind of problem before, please take a moment to come up with your own answer before continuing.

Next, suppose I told you that most doctors get the same wrong answer on this problem - usually, only around 15% of doctors get it right."

When the problem expressed in a a couple of more explicitly analytical ways, the percent of doctors getting it right goes up - but even the easiest version to solve has slightly less than half of doctors getting the right answer.

And the context makes it clear that
"doctors" here means "physicians."

mistah charley, ph.d. link

4/28/2011 02:50:50 am

The previous post got away from me before I was finished with it, but the bottom line is - the problem given, about detecting breast cancer, is simple indeed compared to the Trig Birth Mystery - and yet most doctors don't get it right. If you want to increase your knowledge about probability, by all means read all of Yudkowsky's article.

To return to medical issues, as Sherlock Holmes teaches us, things are not always what they seem - skim milk masquerades as cream. The creamy headline for Weigel's story at Slate is "Mat-Su Regional Hospital Says Trig Palin Was Born There." When you read it, it turns out it's skim milk - it's an anonymous assertion by a clerk on the phone that "everybody here remembers" that Trig Palin was born at that hospital, which is the Palin family hospital. It's NOT a statement from the hospital. Furthermore, it does not answer the REAL question, which is, is Sarah Palin the woman who gave birth to Trig? If so, then she and her doctor behaved recklessly, even if the "wild ride" story is a tall tale. If not, then The Trig Birth Mystery is a giant hoax. But we are not going to get the truth out of Sarah, or Mat-Su, or the doctor who allegedly attended the birth - so we have to look elsewhere.

DebinOH

4/28/2011 02:51:34 am

v - I agree the phone call didn't really answer anything. She did not verify a date, etc. I cannot even believe the hospital would allow anyone to give this information out. Of course, SP could have "allowed" someone to say that she had Trig there.

Wonder who she can buy off in Anchorage?

Laura Novak link

4/28/2011 04:23:46 am

Mistah Charley, thanks for adding to the equation. I have great respect, also, too, for people who can analyze a situation to this degree with this kind of probability. Thank you for adding to the conversation.

And yes, the latest phone call to Mat Su. How young is this reporter, David? How wet behind ears? How stupid can this "media" story get? I am dumbfounded. And yes, in my experience, "clerks" don't take reporter's phone calls. They hand them off, lest they get fired.

Has the word suddenly gone forth to confirm the location of this child's birth?

But what of the mother? How did he manage to forget that question?

AKRNC

4/28/2011 02:31:37 pm

Thank you, Laura, for this second opinion you were able to obtain. This doctor hit on what I've been stressing all along, the fact that with the risk factors being known long before birth for both mother and child, it would be medical negligence on the part of the physician and hospital to deliver this baby unless it was an emergency. We know from what $arah has said that she made it to the hospital with time to spare in order to end up being induced. Her claiming that she was induced and still saying it was her easiest birth yet because he was so "small" is the biggest load of b.s. I've ever heard. I don't know any woman who would call Pitocin-induced contractions "easy", NONE!

What always bothered me was the "what if's" about this story. Can you imagine the uproar if anything had happened to Palin and the baby? Do you think her physician could have just said "but $arah insisted that I deliver the baby" and that would make everything OK? Hell, no, she'd still be guilty of malpractice. That is why I never will believe any part of this crazy story. I don't believe any physician would take such a chance with their medical license nor a hospital with its accreditation in order to appease even a high profile patient like Palin. It's not worth the financial risk or the risk to their reputation.

Being a Nurse Practitioner for almost 20 years, I can safely say that no mother can ever predict what labor will be like no matter whether she's had four children or fourteen. $arah uses her previous pregnancies as proof she didn't have to worry but her medical history with two prior miscarriages, her age, and the risk factors involved with the baby put her in the high risk category from the beginning of her alleged pregnancy. There is not a practicing physician I know who would have agreed to her flying home from Texas and certainly no family physicians I know, despite their occasional delivery, who would agree to fill in as her OB. It just didn't happen.

Laura Novak link

4/29/2011 02:37:14 am

AKRNC you bring great perspective to this. The question is not only "what really happened" but why was the doctor involved and to what degree. Perhaps, as both doctors say, under "normal" circumstances, planning to deliver a Ds baby by a FP is not out of the question. But if fluid was truly leaking at 35 weeks, why not insist they meet her in Anchorage. Or better yet, the Perinatology team that supposedly checked her out earlier. Who lied and when? Glad to have your comments. Now...how do we find the answer???

el ranchero

5/6/2011 06:06:23 am

You're kidding about all this nonsense, right? I'm a liberal Democrat, so I'm more than happy to see Sarah Palin caught in a big lie, but this is crazy.

What, exactly, do you think you're proving? That Sarah Palin (of all people!) spun some elaborate conspiracy to hide the fact that... what, Bristol is actually Trig's mother? To what end? To show that her daughter would only get knocked up once?

Are you trying to say Trig was adopted? If so, why would Palin hide it? If this was all to curry favor with social conservatives, wouldn't she look extra awesome for going out of her way to adopt a Down Syndrome kid? And again, who the hell cares? I don't understand what the point of your grand conspiracy is.

And as for these "math skills":
"80% of all DS babies are born to women under 35. So we’ll give Sarah a 20% chance of being Trig’s mom here..."

I lol'ed. Logic fail.

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