Why Gay Parents May Be The Best Parents

[4588686]

[quote name='brianthephysicist' timestamp='1326833784' post='2370594']
83% of all statistics are made up. Including this one.
[/quote]

Always good to see a physicist who regards statistic as the essence of cow. Because statistics is not important to modern physics at all.

[img]http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/pics/Boltzmann.jpg[/img]


I think you just pissed off Boltzmann

[Laudate_Dominum]

I can't help falling in love with statistics... Seriously.

[BG45]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1326829181' post='2370567']
I tend to distrust every study now to an extent, because I know just how easy it is to bull-poopy one.
[/quote]

I should add, that was pretty much every assignment I had in one class last semester. "Tear apart this study, show me how they're lying."

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1326826022' post='2370547']
wheres?!
[/quote]

Try here:

[url="http://foryourmarriage.org/married-parents-are-important-for-children/"]http://foryourmarriage.org/married-parents-are-important-for-children/[/url]

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1326845712' post='2370701']
I should add, that was pretty much every assignment I had in one class last semester. "Tear apart this study, show me how they're lying."
[/quote]
That sounds like a fun class. It's disturbing to realize how saturated the media is with boolsheet. I see viral misinformation on FB quite frequently. It's hard to have to explain fallacies and statistics, especially when so many people are perfectly comfortable with motivated reasoning and confirmation bias (and a simple lie is often more attractive than a complicated truth). Just remembering that recent thing on FB involving a vaccine "study." Oy vey.

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Basilisa Marie' timestamp='1326823724' post='2370534']
You're so meta.
[/quote]

So meta it hurts
.
[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1326824193' post='2370538']
Umadbro?
[/quote]

Chill as ice, man.
[spoiler][img]http://www.badmovies.org/movies/coolasice/coolasice1.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1326829181' post='2370567']
More like, for me at least, an abiding knowledge that what is correct data wise is not always published because it is no politically correct. I've seen a lot of stuff that flies in the face of "common knowledge", including critiques of certain groups statistics that show them to be literally impossible to be real; no one will publish such things though, because they don't wish to go against the politically correct groups and the groups that have money.

An example. One researcher I know did a series of studies that showed there is no significant correlation between restrictive underage drinking laws and traffic accidents. Methodology is sound, every journal he submitted to agreed. However, all wanted him to change the wording of his conclusions so that it would still mostly support the party line, and to cherry pick what statistics were used to be more supportive of the party line.

Another was turned down by some journals for saying that the best fathers in her study were not the ones who were visited in prison by their children, but the ones who kept their kids from visiting because they didn't want them exposed to such an awful environment. I think she eventually got it published and became decently successful in the field, despite it flying in the face of what everyone "knows to be true".

This sort of stuff happens all the time. That's part of why I say I want the raw data and to run it myself before I trust statistics that could have been pulled out of thin air. Especially if there's a chance they've made their own construct and named it what they want; a Factor Analysis, which could have been run on all the variables that were collected, could have determined there was an underlying construct to some of the questions. You can sieze on that and name it whatever you want, as long as you make an argument for why the name works.

We like to call those "fishing expeditions", "the kitchen sink", and "voodoo science". Not Factor Analyses, but just tossing everything (and the kitchen sink ) into a factor analysis, figuring out what holds together, and then doing the rest of the research process from that point on. It's not that I only distrust this study's data, I tend to distrust every study now to an extent, because I know just how easy it is to bull-poopy one.
[/quote]

Oh im fully aware studies can be falsified, and i understand your potential objections. My point was that many of the posts against the study were not based on a legitimate beef with how the study was run, rather on a confirmation bias caused suspicion. if this study said the exact opposite thing, and was posted on a catholic site called "Familymatters.com" or "Nuclearfamily.com", there would be a lot less people complaining.

[quote name='sixpence' timestamp='1326835329' post='2370609']
that being said, occasionally people post not-so-well-designed studies on PM that support the Church's stance on whatever it is and there are usually fewer complaints
[/quote]

exactly. ^see my response to BG



i think its a bit interesting we are focusing on the comparison between functional gay couple adoptions and functional hetero adoptions. Unless the study is blatantly wrong, what it says to me is that being adopted into a gay family is better for the kid than staying with their dysfunctional but "normal" hetero family. it also seems like the kid is better off than remaining in foster care.

I would like to see a direct comparison like you guys are talking about, but if this study isnt completely fabricated, it seems to point towards Gay adoptions being at the very least "better than nothing", and that kids with 2 dads are better of than kids with no dad.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Jesus_lol

[brianthephysicist]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1326844891' post='2370684']
Always good to see a physicist who regards statistic as the essence of cow. Because statistics is not important to modern physics at all.

[img]http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/pics/Boltzmann.jpg[/img]


I think you just pissed off Boltzmann
[/quote]
Yea....it's what we in the business like to refer to as a "joke"....

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1326848471' post='2370733']
Chill as ice, man.
[/quote]
Win.

[4588686]

[quote name='brianthephysicist' timestamp='1326848694' post='2370734']
Yea....it's what we in the business like to refer to as a "joke"....
[/quote]

A joke is never just a joke.

[4588686]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1326845712' post='2370701']
I should add, that was pretty much every assignment I had in one class last semester. "Tear apart this study, show me how they're lying."
[/quote]

I guess we've had very different experiences with this. I know a lot of Professors who run stats and I'm 'friends' with one who specializes in stats and media analysis and I've never seen the sort of endemic corruption or bias that you're describing. There are biases in academia. And academics can misrepresent the raw data. But most academics I know (outside of critical/cultural studies) are pretty open to new points of view and deliberate misrepresentation of the data is the exception rather than the rule. In my thesis class we had it hammered into us that there is no shame in your thesis not being born out by the data and you need to learn how to draw lessons from a failed hypothesis that can be just as valuable as a negative one. Every investigation is valuable. If your thesis can't be proven by the data then dig deeper and figure out why. What were you wrong about? What assumptions did you have at the outset that the data didn't support?

[brianthephysicist]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1326849381' post='2370742']
A joke is never just a joke.
[/quote]
[img]http://chzbronies.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-brony-pinkies-gonna-pink.gif[/img]

[4588686]

[quote name='brianthephysicist' timestamp='1326850179' post='2370750']
[img]http://chzbronies.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-brony-pinkies-gonna-pink.gif[/img]
[/quote]

I don't have any personal animosity towards you. There are many people here, and in the real world, who are upset that reality doesn't bend to their will, and want to fundamentally discredit academic and intellectual investigation in favor of utter intellectual relativism. Jokes like yours lend credence to this idea. I understand that you weren't attempting to fundamentally deconstruct statistics as a science but the tone of this thread was that statistics were essentially a pseudo-science whose results only reflect the personal biases of the investigator and your joke is lending credence to that idea. Particularly significant since you identify as a physicist and particularly ironic since statistical mechanics are so fundamental to so much of modern physics.

[dominicansoul]

some of the comments after the article are hilarious:


[quote]" Relatively few accidental pregnancies occur, in gay or lesbian marriages"....Ya think??[/quote]

[quote] [color=#333333][font=arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif][size=3]Decades of research and millions of dollars have shown that hetero sex is the leading cause of pregnancy in humans.[/size][/font][/color] [/quote]

[quote]"A recent study seems to confirm long held assumptions that heterosexuals are more easily able to reproduce than homosexuals."[/quote]


this one isn't hilarious, it sums up nicely what this research actually concludes:

[quote]This is a non sequitur. The research does not prove, or even suggest, that gays may make the best parents. It only concludes that intentional parents are more likely to do better than accidental parents.[/quote]

[Papist]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1326840088' post='2370648']
Stapel's behavior was not tolerated and the guy is completely discredited and facing criminal prosecution. Sure, a scientist can theoretically be dishonest and make something up, but this is about as far as you can get from the general ethos of scientific research. I still don't quite get your point. Is there an actual connection with the research pertinent to this thread?
[/quote]

Yes. It is pertinent. Stapel is an example of a 'researcher' that produced reports to people who wanted the outcome of his 'research'. He was peer reviewed for years and was well published. It took students to call him out. The article has similarities of Stapel. That is, the desired outcome is believed before 'research' and data is collected. People should not blindly believe researcher's outcome just b/c they have letters after their name.

[4588686]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1326857079' post='2370861']
That is, the desired outcome is believed before 'research' and data is collected.
[/quote]


That's not a research flaw. That's called a hypothesis.

No, I guess it's like that fraud Einstein. That charlatan believed that if his theory of relativity was correct then there would be an observable bend in the light during the eclipse. HE HELD THIS BELIEVED OUTCOME BEFORE THE DATA WAS COLLECTED AND THEN THE EXPERIMENT PROVED HIS GUESS CORRECT??????? HOW CONVENIENT!!!!


FRAUD!


[size=8]FRAUD, I SAY!!![/size]