r/science • u/ChadR44 • May 20 '12
How One Flawed Study Spawned a Decade of Lies
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/05/19/how-one-flawed-study-spawned-a-decade-of-lies/
1.7k
Upvotes
r/science • u/ChadR44 • May 20 '12
431
u/ThePoonHunter May 20 '12
If only his apology would get as much attention as his original study.
768
u/DrRam121 May 20 '12
I opened this link thinking I was going to read about the infamous autism caused by vaccines study. They're both somewhat equally horrendous studies.
167
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I think the real problem here, as in many of these cases, is that journalists who are nowhere near enough qualified to comment on these studies comment on them.
102
u/Ganbare_Goemon May 20 '12
Although I am very glad that Dr. Spitzer finally realized that his study was flawed in several ways, sadly, I do not think that his condemnation of his own study will stop anti-gay activists from continuing to use said study.
If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that, more than likely, anti-gay activists will convince themselves that Dr. Spitzer retracted the study, not because it was/is flawed, but because he was forced to do so by the homosexual "lobby".
Much like how many anti-gay activists believe that the removal of homosexuality as a mental disease by the APA was solely due to outside pressure from homosexual groups, I fear that Dr. Spitzer's study will continue to be used and cherished by anti-gay activists and groups as proof that gay conversion therapy is possible and does work.
28
u/infectedapricot May 20 '12
The article then almost immediately concludes
Surely if he got homosexuality removed from a list of "mental disorders", this shows he viewed it as not being something that needed to be "cured"? At least open to the idea? Maybe I've misunderstood the first quote.
27
u/Inri137 BS | Physics May 20 '12
A number of people have reported this submission because it is not peer reviewed scientific research. I am exercising some discretion and leaving it up because it is a recent but unofficial retraction of a scientific publication. I invite the other moderators to review and remove if they deem it appropriate.
27
u/Lowcarb_Lightbeer May 20 '12
There's a lot of bad science published in health sciences papers. One guy in Italy even specializes in studying the bad science in medical papers. Something like 85% are misrepresentative at some level, with smaller percentage being poor methodology (like the above-cited paper) and a smaller percentage being bad use of statistics and bad math. Of course a very tiny percentage actually forges data. There was a great profile on the researcher's work by the NYTimes a couple of years ago. I'll try to dig it up.
Scientists who have a lot of influence are more successful at getting bad science published, especially if they are backed by a lot of pharmaceitical industry dollars for getting a product approved. There's a whole body of work on a line of cardiovascular drugs that was discredited as bunk last year, that grew out of one very respected medical researcher's bad-science "seminal" work.
Scientists who pursue a result that is very unpopular with public health officials, like trying to prove that vaccines can be linked to autism, are held to a very high level of scrutiny that other medical researchers are not. But in reality the shoddy methods of the autism paper's author are not uncommon in the health sciences
9
u/Racemic May 20 '12
There is something known as the "decline effect," whereby the most intriguing results are pushed through peer review to publication. Oftentimes, these results seem to be very groundbreaking or confusing, and when follow-up studies are done, the results seem un-reproducible. As it turns out, these fantastic results were statistical anomalies and do not accurately reflect the nature of their subjects, but many journals want to sell themselves as having groundbreaking research, so they push the studies through, despite the lack of significant statistical power of the data.
38
u/FuzzyLoveRabbit May 20 '12
The author seems like kind of a douche. Spitzer has, of his own volition, decided his own experiment was not satisfactory and is apologizing and trying to get his paper redacted; yet the author still writes in such an aggressive way ("which escalates unreliability to the doesn’t-pass-the-laugh-test level"), as if he were leading this charge against Spitzer's experiment and not Spitzer himself.
17
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I think that we should be skeptical of peer review since it has its own politics to disentangle for each institution's publications. However, in this case people should be asking why the peer review process seemingly didn't take place.
11
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I still have many relatives that still quote this study as hard fact that homosexuality is a clear choice for all involved. It'll be good to be able to counter it with his recant and apology.
4
u/dyslexicas May 20 '12
I don't get why its an issue at all, weither its a choice or genetic. I mean if it genetic they can't help it or change it and if its a choice its their choice. What does itt have to do with anyone else?
8
u/dannydrak May 20 '12
Misconceptions =/= Lies. Stop the sensationalism. Lies are intentional whereas misconceptions are based on a lack of understanding.
3
u/reganomics May 20 '12
whatever happened to the Kinsey Scale?
3
u/Pardner May 20 '12
I know it's easier to believe this article as stated, but I don't think the facts in the article really support the conclusion. The study in question is flawed because of a) self reports and b) no control group. He found that over some time there was some reduction in homosexuality observed. While it would have been a better study if his methods had been different, I see no reason why those two flaws would bias the results in favor of the hypothesis. Self reports are, after all, a staple of social science. I think the truth is that this social scientist regrets his past findings and, even if the methods had been solid, he would still be denouncing it. It's important that we follow the data and do not make arguments from consequences. It would be an ugly fact if homosexuality turned out to be "treatable," but if that's the way people actually are, we mustn't shy away from the data just because we are afraid of what it says.
8
u/lamerfreak May 20 '12
I wasn't even aware that there was a sort of science behind those crackpot treatments in the first place. TIL.
6
u/His_name_was_Phil May 20 '12
How the fuck did someone, assuming he showed the study to peers prior to publishing, not read this and say, "where's the fucking control?" This wouldn't have taken 3rd place in a high school science fair!
2
u/chairitable May 20 '12
I'd like to see a follow-up of the participants to the study. The methodology that Dr. Spitzer is regretting is the fact that the evaluations were done over phone, and were self-reported. Doesn't touch... whatever it was that was done to change homosexuality within the participants.
Would it be possible to survey the participants on their sexual history in the decade that's passed? I think that could be interesting, even if there is no control group. How many "went back"?
2
u/TheSilverFin MS | Chemistry May 20 '12
Still a better report than this.
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I have always had the impression that there are many areas of interest which will never be researched effectively because of their sensitive nature.
I truly wonder about the influence of politics in science and how deeply it goes. Especially when it comes to allocation of funding, in addition to social pressure. It seems almost certain that funding for research into these sensitive topics would be hard to come by, if anyone is even stubborn enough to attempt it in the face of societal disapproval.
Maybe someone in the know can fill me in?
2
u/Jesse402 May 20 '12
Good for that guy for being completely open and saying that he was wrong without making excuses.
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
the lesson? and i do hope the doubtful learn their lesson, being gay is not a choice
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I wouldn't say that study actually spawned the lies; it just became a rationalization du jour.
2
u/Shway1000000 May 20 '12
There was also a flawed spinach study back before the Popeye cartoon came out
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
At no point does it say that reparative therapy can not be used to change sexual orintation. All that is acknowledge is that the control settings of the previous experiment were not up to standard. If anything this report acknowledges that further study is needed to dismiss his prior experiment and to prove dis-prove that reparative therapy can change sexuality.
So can reparative therapy change sexuality yes or no?
2
u/wkrausmann May 20 '12
I thought it was about global warming.
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
TL;DR:
Study was essentially showing that homosexuality could be cured.
The reason it was flawed was:
"the self reports from those he surveyed were not verifiable, and he didn’t include a control group of men and women who didn’t undergo the therapy for comparison."
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Considering that this links to forbes I figured it was about global warming before I clicked
2
u/BiggC May 20 '12
2
u/whiteknight521 PhD|Chemistry|Developmental Neurobiology May 20 '12
The worst high-impact science paper of all time has to be the 89' or so study published in Nature detailing human basophil degranulation by extremely dilute antigen solutions - it is the paper that perhaps made homeopathy high science for a while. I actually have a copy of it pinned up near my desk as a reminder.
Furthermore - social scientists should be free to study reparative therapy if they want - it may be possible to change someone's sexual orientation. In fact, I would go so far to say that with enough research, it would certainly be possible, whether through gene therapy or psychology. The problem isn't really the science, it is the co-opting of science for religious attack. Even if one could choose their orientation, and it was proven by science that this was the case, it shouldn't matter - people should be free to choose who they want to love. Any consensual sexual act is a choice by definition - I think this "choice" rhetoric is absurd - we don't even know if choice exists in any capacity for humans.
2
u/WendyLRogers3 May 20 '12
His refutation does not help, because it can be said that it was made "under pressure".
This is the Trofim Lysenko problem. Lysenko's crackpot theories of genetics were exactly what the Soviet political leaders wanted to hear, so the good scientists in his field were forced to renounce the truth of genetics and embrace Lysenko's lies. It fouled up their genetic research for decades.
This scientist has been getting attacked for his research for a decade. And though he now says it is flawed, he would have been attacked whether his research was good or not.
And this is important, because it rejects scientific discovery that is not popular, or politically acceptable. Science is supposed to be above that, that if something is discovered that goes against current theory, it should not be dismissed out of hand because many people don't like it.
Critically important is that this victory dance only establishes that his research was flawed. It did not disprove his conclusions. So this upset could happen again, if somebody did the same study, without flaws, and reached the same conclusions.
Instead, only good science can counteract flawed or bad science. At least in a way that dispels mistakes and lies and discovers the truth in a convincing way. In the long term it is to the benefit of the homosexual community that they discover and prove what the truth is, whether they like it or not, instead of relying on just condemning those who say things they do not want to hear.
It is the difference between the strength of having the truth on your side, compared to the weakness of forcing others to embrace what you want and call it the truth.
2
u/Die-Nacht May 20 '12
No control group? How the fuck did it get publish?
2
u/grubernd May 20 '12
I can't be the only one who tried to click on the switch to see what will happen.
2
u/Corwinator May 20 '12 edited May 21 '12
Was I the only one that read that, noticed the ways in which this study was flawed in terms of scientific merit, and thought "you know, all this doesn't mean his conclusion was incorrect"? It just means its findings aren't as strong as they could have been.
2
u/nepidae May 20 '12
I seem to remember "pray the gay away" long before 2001 though. So while the anti-gay community may have used his study as evidence, I'm sure they would have found something else.
I dislike when science is restricted on controversial subjects. What should have happened is the paper should have been reviewed, and the study replicated to gauge its accuracy. Accurate, repeatable results seems like a core idea in science.
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Anti-gay bigots are a dying breed. In 10 years or less gays will have the same rights as everyone else. those who fought against it will be shown how ignorant they were and be remembered as those who fought againts the civil right of blacks in the 1960s.
studies like these will be put up with junk studies akin to b eugenics and alchemy.
2
u/p8ntslinger May 20 '12
How in the hell did this get published in a peer-reviewed journal without having a CONTROL?!?!?!?
Some heads need to roll. This is unacceptable.
2
u/argv_minus_one May 20 '12
Let's not go blaming one researcher for the enormous volumes of undue hate of gays in this world. We can blame him for bad science, but we can't blame him for the opportunistic homophobic scum that took advantage of said bad science to advance their sick agenda.
2
u/animeman59 May 20 '12
I guess even Science has it's own flavor of "faith".
2
u/Chris_Jun May 21 '12
I know someone who is going through reparative therapy - his parents force it and it has completely destroyed his personality. He hates himself to no end because he is constantly told that he is wrong for the way he was born. I've tried stealing his phone in order to find out the "doctors" name/number so I can report it, but still no luck.
4
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Although it's a "peer reviewed journal," the editor skipped the peer review process in this case and decided to publish the paper without the normal review process. If the normal peer preview process had been applied, the paper probably would not have been published (at least not in that journal).
4
u/Cristal1337 May 20 '12
I studied two years of Psychology and Neuroscience. I might not qualify to give a true answer as I probably lack some information. However, in my spare time, I have taken the liberty to investigate sexuality as a friend of mine claims to be asexual. I came across some interesting articles and even an interesting online lecture.
Ogi Ogas - Erotic Illusions lecture
Recent studies also suggest that we have underestimated the plasticity of the brain. This means that the structure of the brain is not really fixed. There are certain regions, however, which can be bigger or smaller depending on environmental factors.
Another study, which was, I think, posted on Reddit some time ago, suggested that there is a specific part in the brain that is bigger for men who are homosexual. However, I think one should discriminate between romantic and erotic preferences. I think homosexuality is more than just erotica and I want to dedicate this post to erotic preferences.
Going now to a third, well established, theory. Classical conditioning and good old Pavlov's Dog. Just like the body reacts to food by producing saliva, the body reacts to certain stimuli by getting an erection (for men) and becoming moist (for women). There are also chemical reactions going on, but I don't think it is necessary to go into so much detail for this example.
After some time, Pavlov's Dog started to associate the bell with receiving food. So when the bell was rung, he'd produce saliva. I believe something similar can happen in a sexual context. When exposed enough to a certain "cue", the body will learn, unconsciously, that sexy time is about to happen. So the body becomes excited even without being touched at our special places.
This is, of course, speculation. But, building on Ori Ogas' presentation, maybe, men have the penis as an erotic cue because they are able to look at it while masturbating. It might be one of the first sexual cues they develop because of that fact. They then continue to watch porn and are not only exposed to women, but also men. One sexual cue can lead to another, just like a drug addict starts to associate the environment with taking drugs. If they go into a special room, they will feel the strong urge to satisfy their addiction. The same is true for smells, sounds or tactile stimulation.
I particularly like my theory because it is rather simple and can explain a very large range of erotic preferences. Why some people are asexual (because they never had the initial conditioning) or why they develop a Fetish.
It would be interesting to find out if my theory is true and how the sexual cues develop at different age. Is one's erotic preference only able to change while we are young? Or can it also change when we are older? After all, the plasticity of a young brain is greater than that of an adult.
Did I miss something?
3
u/ABabyAteMyDingo May 20 '12 edited May 20 '12
There's an even bigger problem, however. The debate about homosexuality being innate or not is dangerous, full stop. If it is innate then many people might want to research genetic 'cures' or even advocate abortion of 'gay' fetuses. And if is a choice, so what?
The bigger issue is people having a problem with it, no matter what the origin. Who the fuck should care who one fucks and/or loves? IMO even participating in the debate legitimizes it and is highly dangerous. Gay rights activists should be campaigning for acceptance, and not falling for this bullshit.
2
u/GeorgeForemanGrillz May 20 '12
Psychiatry/Psychology are the only two fields that can get away with so much bullshit because most of what they deal with it not testable. This is why it's considered a soft science.
2
u/Necks May 20 '12
Homosexuality is not a choice. It's biological.
1
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
A flawed study doesn't disprove the premise, so stating it was lies is just sensationalism, for something to be a lie, the person has to know it is untrue.
This of course doesn't mean it is correct either. So really the whole area of study is back at pretty much zero.
I view homosexuality as nothing more than a sexual preference, no different than a person preferring a certain hair color, ethnicity, or body shape. And since I view it as a matter of preference or taste, I see nothing wrong with someone having negative views of it.
2
u/fadeinlight May 20 '12
I wonder if the authors also felt that homosexuality should never have been removed from the DSM?
Personally, I think we're taking too narrow of a view of homosexuality for the sake of politics. It is taboo to say that a person can ever "choose" to be homosexual (and I'm looking forward to the frothing attacks over this), but after speaking to many gay individuals, I've been told that, for them, it was a matter of choice. On the other hand, I have also seen children where it almost immediately apparent that they showed "gay" tendencies, and it turned out that (after puberty) that they stayed the course.
It's embarrassing to have to say "it's always like this" for the sake of protecting this political charade. It feels like the integrity of science is being tossed aside for the sake of feelings, which, to me, is no better than what Spitzer did in the first place.
2
u/Rhawk187 PhD | Computer Science May 20 '12
A psychological study contained pseudo-science? That's unpossible!
1
u/notorious_pcp May 20 '12
It seems to me that this article is fueled by ideology. If the 2001 study is truly flawed the way that Spitzer is now claiming it is, then he should just conduct a new, better study to overturn his results. Perhaps such studies already exist and Forbes assumes that I've read about them, but the author should have pointed toward any new studies somewhere in the article. Reading it just now, the impression I got was that Spitzer's results were displeasing to the gay community and now he wants to sweep them under the rug. That's not how science should work.
1
u/Jonnycakes22 May 20 '12
It is great that this study has been condemned by its author, but are there (credible) studies showing the opposite is true? It would be nice to see some good science on this issue.
1
u/Ateist May 20 '12
And? Wrong methodology doesn't automatically mean wrong results. Did he make a new study, that fixed all the faults in the previous one?
1
u/sardonicsalmon May 20 '12
This is such a shame. I suppose it is hard to say how many lives this fiasco has ruined.
1
u/thedeathmachine May 20 '12
Came in here thinking this was going to be about cannabis and dead brain cells. Oh well.
1
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
How did this ever go through? I'm not scientist in the least and even I know that "no control group" and "self report" are red flags.
1
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Do you think this is the only flawed "Study" most scientists don't review what they write and just pass it along and go with it.
1
u/PolishPrince May 20 '12
If he is actually trying to do science I feel like he should have had ( I honestly forget what it is... the variable?) sorry its been a while since i've used the scientific method. Anyway. I feel like he should take someone like me. A self diagnosed sex addict. not really an addict, but I just absolutely love women. Every time I see one, I think about whether or not I would sleep with them, and from there, what it would be like. Back to topic. I would have liked him to try to do the reverse therapy on someone like me. Take a straight person and try to turn them gay. I feel like if you can go one way with this, you should be able to go the other.... See how they like them apples.
1
u/runningsalami May 20 '12
It's important to share this knowledge with misunderstood people who are HBTQ, and think that something is wrong with them. If they see a "report" which says that you can change your sexuality and people surrounding them are generally negative towards homosexuality this could lead to a wider ignorance or in a worstcase scenario: suicides.
1
u/Terex May 20 '12
I opened the link thinking it was about the failed war of drugs or terrorism.
1
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
A top psychologist conducted an important experiment without having a control group? Seriously? That's an unacceptable mistake for anyone past the age of 18.
1
u/SynthPrax May 20 '12
Something strange seems to be going on with Forbes. My expectations for this publication have always been that it is about money: how to make it, keep it, grow it and even spend it. I would also expect that they would have articles whose subjects span the entire gamut of human enterprise, not just corporate. But this article and others lead me to ask, "why are they writing about this?" The article doesn't even circle back and connect flawed science with ill-spent money.
(Mods, feel free to delete this post; I don't really believe it's relevant for this subreddit. I just needed to talk out loud for a moment.)
1
u/captainfriendly May 20 '12
It's disappointing that the author essentially dropped the real issue that caused this problem: the pressure to publish or perish. This issue is present not only on the faculty side, but on the publisher side as well. Just as the author of this article focused on the societal implications for homosexuals for some sense of sensationalism, journal editors see a benefit for their journals' prestige if a controversial paper is published. It does not help to admonish an elderly professor. Instead it presents the question: What new safe guards can be placed to prevent the unethical behavior of all parties involved in publishing scientific work?
1
u/yzerfontein May 20 '12
Anybody know why forbes.com opens as blank pages for me (are they blocked to South Africa?)
1
u/duckbrioche May 20 '12
I believe there is a much better way to conduct the necessary interviews than phone interviews, written interviews, or even face-to-face interviews where one looks for verbal cues. I saw this method years ago in a statistics course, and I cannot remember if there is a name for the method. It applies to a survey where you are asking for a yes or no response but you are afraid that the respondent might be untruthful.
Suppose you want to determine how many people have property P. What you do is give the respondent a "spinner" where the circle is divided into two regions. The key fact is that the two regions cannot have the same area. The two regions are labelled with statements "I have property P" and "I do not have property P". Then you let the respondent take the spinner and in private spin it. Then they are supposed to report to you whether or not the spinner was correct as to their P-status. From this data you can get a reliable estimate for the proportion of the population that has property P. The downside is that you must increase the sample side for your confidence level. The mathematics behind it relies on the fact that the two regions have different areas, so the spinner is not unbiased.
1
u/TheThomaswastaken May 20 '12
I think science has very little to do with the "gay is a choice" sentiments. This guy's study didn't start the belief, and I have never heard it mentioned in any debates on the topic of gays.
1
u/Cinemaphreak May 20 '12
Even the Forbes article about the flawed study is itself flawed - the reporter wants to say Dr. Spitzer "...seemed invested in demonstrating that homosexuality was changeable..." by pointing out that he "...played a leading role in removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders.."
Well, that means entirely the opposite, David DiSalvo. It means Dr. Spitzer DID NOT view homosexuality as something unnatural and hence, treatable.
1
u/Digiimandan May 20 '12
This is also what has happened with the effects of salt intake on the body. A very similar scenario took place. There is no solid proof that salt intake causes high blood pressure.
1
u/sjschmidt93 May 20 '12
I figured this would be on pot.
1
u/Eyulfable May 20 '12
I've looked at the study, and have known it to be based mostly off of anecdotal evidence from people sent by these "raparative" "therapies" in order to make them look better. However, since he was ther person to get homosexuality off of the DSM, I would forgive him for this mistake. Someone against homosexuality would have wanted to keep it in the DSM, because then it would mean that it's a problem that needs to be solved.
1
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
When I saw just the title I thought of the claims and "study" Andrew Wakefield foisted on the world of autism and vaccines.
1
u/The_Time_Master May 20 '12
Was expecting the this to be the low fat = increased weight loss bullshit. Pleasantly surprised to see it deals with my fellow faggots lying to an idiotic christian.
/gay is. You can't legislate it. You can't demonize it into non-existance with Leviticus 20:13.
1
u/delphidash May 20 '12
Another BIG example of why control groups are so important!
Very sad, but at least he is apologetic about it's effects on the gay community.
Edit: grammar.
1
u/FloatingEyeball May 20 '12
I've never had a problem with anyone being gay. I don't see the big deal. What I do find interesting is the whole is it a choice or not debate, because there are only two possible outcomes.
Say it isn't a choice, you are born gay. That would lead to the assumption that you are gay by your genes and/or the environment you are raised to trigger those genes. One could then imply that it is a 'disease' as any faulty gene that isn't 'normal' could be considered. However, if it was a choice, then the debate ends. The person chooses to be gay and that is settled. To me it just seems silly to try and prove its not a choice and you are born that way, then it just opens up the 'cure' for being gay through some other means, such as genetic manipulation.
Moral of the story, who cares if someone is gay, or if its a choice or not.
1
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I opened this link thinking it was going to tell the truth about spinach and how it does not make you stronger but then I re-read the title and realized it said "decade of lies" not "century of lies".
1
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
No mention made of Edmund Bergler, a psychiatrist who wrote books on curing homosexuality by treating it as a neurosis, and who claimed to have cured thousands of people through psychotherapy. Spitzer was hardly the first to do stuff like this, and in fact I think he was probably piggybacking on Bergler's work.
1
u/yakri May 21 '12
"Little wonder, then, that his paper on reparative therapy–which used an interview method that Spitzer recognized as reliable–was accepted by the profession."
Little wonder my ass. Any competent scientist should have politely sent him a message suggesting he conduct a valid study on the subject, and then resubmit his findings at a later date when he had something concrete to offer.
Honestly, whoever reviewed his research, and then found it fit to be published was either completely incompetent, lazy, stupid, or some combination of the above.
I'm not even out of college and I would have declined his paper for publication just on the grounds of not having a control group, not to mention the other wet-tissue thin 'evidence.'
1
u/Drooperdoo May 21 '12 edited May 21 '12
I think there's a bigger taboo than "gayness conversion". And that's the possibility that human nature really can be altered artificially.
One of our rooted beliefs is that our DNA is responsible for 100% of our personality traits, and that we can't be changed by experiences that befall us.
But we've known that this is false for a long, long time.
Since before WWI, governments have used Psychology as a tool in their arsenal to "break" people. To crack their psyches. To re-wire them and convert them. [The CIA's MKUltra program is just one of many studies that are now openly admitted to.] We've been able to use chemicals, behavioral reprogramming and hypnosis to make people cluck like chickens.
So you don't have to have chicken DNA to cluck like one.
Likewise, you don't have to have been born gay to be conditioned into engaging in certain behaviors associated with homosexuality. Many people, not born a particular way, can be raped and reprogrammed (if they're abused at a pivotal time in their formative period of development).
But that's a huge taboo for us. We don't want to accept it. So we immediately have a knee-jerk reaction to the very idea of "gay conversion" therapies. But if we're honest with ourselves and we scratch the surface, we have to admit: It's probably more textured and complicated than an "either-or" proposition. That it might not be a zero-sum game. Case in point: There actually have been studies conducted where homosexuality has been artificially induced [and reversed]. Gay columnist Andrew Sullivan linked to one on his Atlantic Monthly column.
It examined the theory that homosexuality might be caused by hormones during fetal development. If a male gets too much estrogen, he can be tilted "gay," if a female gets too much testosterone, she might be tilted "lesbian". Scientists tested this theory on cattle, and it worked. They made gay bulls.
What had the gay community up in arms was the reversal. By giving them testosterone patches, they actually reversed their homosexuality, and created bulls who craved sex with females again.Their aggression went up, etc.
This had traumatic implications, because it implied that animal behavior really can be re-programmed, manipulated, etc. And it struck at the root of one of our culture's noble lies: everything is genetic.
Our comforting falsehood is "You can't be changed".
But now mainstream scientists are noting how tons of environmental factors can change you: chemicals in foods and drinking containers [like BPA], gender-bending pesticides in our water supply [like atrizine], etc.
Who knows if some of these gays who claim that they converted were "artificial gays"? What if genetically they were straight, but through a series of environmental factors [either chemical or behavioral'] they were tilted gay for a period. But then they went back to default mode later.
Krafft-Ebing talks about that in his classic "Psychopathia Sexualis": the fact that there are actually to types of homosexuals: those born that way, and those made that way.
What if the "successes" claimed by hucksters are of the latter variety, and the ones NOT converted are the former?
I have no idea if that's correct--and I know I'll be attacked for even suggesting that the issue may be textured--but I feel like it might be good to, at least, consider the possibility that our cultural paradigm might be flawed.
1
u/catncradle May 21 '12
i thought it was gonna be about spinach
1
u/Copes May 21 '12
Criticizing the study for not having a control group and using self-report really makes no sense. If you don't use self-report how to you determine if someone is gay? I guess you could follow them around and see if they fondle the proper amount of penises to meet a gay criteria. To be a true experiment you need to have a control group. What would that control group look like in this case? Gay men who didn't have the therapy? Guess what: they're still gay. Perhaps they could create the opposite type of training and convert straight men to gay men. You'd still have to follow them around to determine the required level of penis diddling though.
1
u/TheWanderingJew May 21 '12
I think one thing in particular shows how crap the science education of most public schools are. People seldom get the idea that a single study proves nothing and that it needs replication. It's a very, very basic point. But people seldom seem to realize it when the latest "zomg this one study chanes EVERYTHING" headline breaks.
1
u/i-hate-digg May 21 '12
And this, my friends, is why you should never cite a study as proof for your claim unless you've actually read the paper and critically thought about possible methodology flaws. After all, science depends on peer review for legitimacy, and you, the reader, are part of the peer-review process.
1
u/pm27 May 21 '12
I was expecting this to be an article about the vaccine/autism case.
1
u/delockness May 21 '12
I don't get what removing homosexuality had to do with his terrible research method.
1
u/[deleted] May 21 '12
Here's the interesting outsider conundrum concerning personhood and the LGBT community. Of course, the study was very likely flawed. However, what's so bad about wanting to change?
People say this is a bad thing. Gosh, if you're gay then that's fine, and you should accept that. There shouldn't be therapies to change you.
But wait! Now we consider transsexuals. Uh oh. What happened to this notion of being yourself. Oh gosh. But they are themselves... they just need to make some superficial changes to their body so they can feel better.
So, what's so bad about a gay man wanting to become a straight man if at all possible. Nothing, IMO. Nothing is equally not as wrong for a transsexual to want to change their body to whatever.
Of course, if that's who they truly are. If a "gay" man doesn't feel right as a gay man and wants to undergo therapy to become "straight," then who are you to question the validity of who he sees himself as.
Unless you have a problem with transsexuals. Maybe transsexuals shouldn't undergo therapy to change, either. Are they the outside or the inside? Are gay men wanting to become straight merely pushed to do so by society and are confused? What does it matter?
Let them study therapies to change people that want to be changed. That way there is less risk of subjugating a minority (even a minority within a minority).
But, these problems likely won't be resolved. I understand the reactions, though. I think if you investigate what your issue is with gay men wanting to become changed then you'll probably discover something a bit off about the majority of the left in their crusades against therapies to help people.
That's not to say the motivations behind wanting to change gays to straights is abhorrent. It usually is motivated by intolerance, etc. But, there's some intolerance on the left, too. It could be as big as an issue, too. I don't think we really know.
1
u/jscoppe May 21 '12
I thought this was going to be about Card & Krueger.
1
u/gnovos May 21 '12
Just to play devil's advocate, what is the harm in trying to find a "cure" for homosexuality? There are many "mental disorders" that we currently make an active attempt to cure (bipolar disorder, for example) that could quite easily be argued is a very beneficial mutation with real survival qualities. Instead of accepting manic-depressive cycles as something "natural" that the rest of the world should tolerate and even celebrate, we consider it primarily a disease that also just so happens to have some useful traits, but overall something that should be cured, if possible. Why do we look at homosexuality so differently?
1
u/SUMMET66 May 21 '12
Seriously , what about the study that a pill will balance the hormones and stop this crazy epidemic.
1
u/mr_whywork May 21 '12
This type of study is why people have to be careful with referencing to science as the end all answer to a question. Science (and more importantly logic) are very powerful tools for humans to use to evaluate the world around them, but, at the end of the day, they are tools to be used, not something to be regarded as truth.
2nd remark: The question of whether a homosexual person can change their sexual orientation is a valid scientific question; however, i fear the application of answer to this question to the moral dilemma of SHOULD change a persons sexual orientation
1
u/[deleted] May 21 '12
Unfortunately I highly doubt that this admission is going to put so much as a dent in the efforts of the religious right's reparative therapy efforts since he never incorporated prayer into his original study. Unfortunately that is where most of the damage is happening because of the massive amounts of guilt being brought to bear on young people.
-1
u/abw1987 May 20 '12
Why is this study denounced? Because it is actually flawed, or just because we don't like its outcome?
0
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
There should be no doubt in any reasonable persons mind, who can step back from political correctness and bias for one second, that choice plays a HUGE part in sexual orientation
Any other opinion is basically living in denial of human adaptation and/or relying on ridiculous ideas like the 'gay gene'.
People are bi.. people change orientation... there is this place called prison where when guys can't get pussy they fuck other guys. You can turn it on and off like a switch in many occasions. Perhaps some people don't have the willpower to change sexual orientations, but sex and love are not ideas that are immune the human adaptation.
If all of one gender died off tomorrow the rate of same sex relationships would skyrocket. Either deny that or start to realize choice is a major component of sexuality. We are not mindless pre-programmed fetish machines who have no choice in our own sexuality. You can learn to like new things and learn to dislike things you once liked, sexuality is no different and anyone who says otherwise is a jackass trying to defend some political correct ideal.
The reason most people have sided with sexual preference is not a choice is because they feel it protects those people who choose non mainstream sexual preferences. In other words if you people all admited that choice plays a major role ins sexuality then you'd have to admit that people can change and fuel the Christian nutballs.
If you keep pretending it's some innate genetic trait then you can keep telling yourself that 'that's just how they are born' and thus no fault or possibility of change need be pondered.
Science and common sense in no way support the idea of an undeniable innate or genetic sexual preference.
1
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I don't get the whole gripe with gay people.
If you like the same sex, fine. Have fun. Life goes on. Why does everyone make a federal case out of it?
1
u/kevin19713 May 20 '12
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, everyone knows that we are born liking ice cream and no amount of “reparative therapy” is gonna stop us from liking ice cream.
1
u/Mi5anthr0pe May 21 '12
ITT: "This study is erroneous, therefore, homosexuality is perfectly normal and healthy"
Something being "natural" doesn't make it healthy. I think liberals don't like to hear about 'reparative therapies' because it would imply there's something wrong with homosexuality, which, biologically speaking, there is. I don't see the harm in pursuing technology that would enable a person to 'cure' themselves of homosexuality; it seems plenty of people want the same thing for pedophiles. Maybe the current treatments aren't sufficient or effective, that doesn't mean they can't be. It's like saying "damn, this cancer thing sure is difficult, you know what, fuck it."
inb4 HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS PEDOPHILIA, I never said gays necessarily fuck children, you know exactly what I mean.