{"id":1232,"date":"2016-08-26T14:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T18:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicauthenticity\/?p=1232"},"modified":"2016-08-26T14:00:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T18:00:55","slug":"for-every-study-there-is-an-equal-and-opposite-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicauthenticity\/2016\/08\/for-every-study-there-is-an-equal-and-opposite-study\/","title":{"rendered":"For Every Study There Is An Equal And Opposite Study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"stormtrooper-1351022_1920\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of buzz today<\/a> about a new \u201cstudy\u201d on sexuality and gender published by The New Atlantis.<\/a> Actually, as Warren Throckmorton points out, the article is not a study at all \u2013 it\u2019s a review of other studies that attempts to grapple with the data about sexual orientation and gender identity from a basically socially conservative perspective.<\/p>\n

Throckmorton links to another review <\/a>from the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest<\/a>, this one basically socially liberal, that examines much of the same empirical evidence and comes to more or less opposite conclusions.<\/p>\n

As my husband likes to say, for every study there is an equal and opposite study.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have a more in-depth analysis of the New Atlantis piece once I\u2019ve had time to read it thoroughly (it\u2019s a very long document). So far I\u2019m about a third of the way through and I\u2019ve encountered very little that I\u2019m not already familiar with. Actually most of the supposedly really controversial and damning evidence that this article brings up is well known within the academic queer community. Nobody in queer studies actually believes in the simplistic political formulation \u201cBorn that way\u201d any more than any serious Christian theologian subscribes to the \u201cAdam and Eve, not Adam and Steve\u201d hypothesis.<\/p>\n

The New Atlantis article is reasonably responsible with the data \u2013 but I doubt that very many people are going to read it. What will happen in reality is that politically motivated pundits, like Austin Ruse writing over at Crisis<\/a>, will jump and down waving the paper and hollering about how \u201cscience\u201d has proved that they are right.<\/p>\n

What they will miss is that even though the article itself is a reasonably balanced and sober-minded review of the available literature, it suffers from blatant confirmation bias. Evidence that supports partial biological causation is consistently acknowledged, but it\u2019s also consistently trivialized. Evidence that undermines the biological causation narrative is consistently privileged.<\/p>\n

The authors do have the integrity to point out the methodological limitations in the research on both sides of the question, but the article kind of sends a mixed message: on the one hand, it consistently points to the gaps in our knowledge, the small sample sizes involved in the studies, the inconclusiveness of the research \u2013 and on the other hand, it subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) suggests that once we know more we\u2019ll be able to be sure that the causes are primarily social and psychological.<\/p>\n

As the authors of the Psychological Science in the Public Interest article point out, an individuals political attitudes about sexual orientation tend to correlate with their views of the causes of sexual orientation. Those who hold positive attitudes (i.e., that there is nothing inherently wrong with non-heterosexuality or its open expression) have tended to believe that sexual orientation is due to nonsocial causes such as genetics. Those who hold negative attitudes (i.e., that non-heterosexuality is undesirable or immoral and that society should restrict its free expression) have tended to believe that homosexuality has social causes, such as early sexual experiences and cultural acceptance of non-heterosexuality. We refer to these as the \u201cnonsocial\u201d and \u201csocial\u201d hypotheses, respectively. Both hypotheses require direct scientific support; neither can claim confirmation solely because support for the other is weak.<\/p>\n

So far, the New Atlantis article seems to be illustrating this point fairly nicely.<\/p>\n

Both of these articles are brand new, and both are quite lengthy so it\u2019s going to take me a while to wade through them. As I do, I\u2019ll have more to say. For the moment, I just want to suggest that everybody put on the brakes, take a deep breath, and internalize the fact that \u201cscience\u201d has by no means settled these questions and that the discussions will be a lot more fruitful if we actually try to examine the data soberly rather than immediately declaring a victory for our side every time anybody with letters after their name publishes a paper that supports our views.<\/p>\n

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