I think an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about can be seen in the landmark study on homosexuality by Evelyn Hooker. It's called The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual and you can see the text of it at https://people.well.com/user/aquarius/hooker.htm. It is seminal to the "normalization of homosexuality" movement and you can see it frequently cited to this day.Ivytalk wrote:OK, let’s see your regression analysis, Mr. Research Methods.JohnStOnge wrote:
I'd have to see the methods details to comment directly on what they did. But It's interesting to me because I have always thought of the "stamp out all risk" movement as coming mostly from the "liberal" side. The "liberal" side, to me, has been the one more vested in trying to guarantee well being for each individual.
I do think social science is an area where liberal bias is rampant and I also think it's easy for them to get the results they want.
If you read it you will see that Hooker made a special effort to select only subjects who had "average adjustment." She screened study subjects to make sure they were not in therapy and/or to make sure they did not show evidence of "considerable disturbance."
Then at the end of the study she made a big deal out of noting that the homosexuals in her study were similar to heterosexuals in terms of adjustment.
So she selected all of the subjects in order to assure that they were of average adjustment then acted as though she had shown something when subjects in both groups were of average adjustment.
That's an example of the kinds of games that are played.
