Ex-Gayness in Pretend Science
There are a few psychologists -- very few -- who align themselves with the view that sexual orientation is subject to change. Well, that's no big deal, in itself, I suppose psychological theory is big enough to allow some dynamics along that dimension, but these are people who specifically think (or hope) that people with a homosexual orientation can become heterosexual. It only goes one way, if you were straight and you went to the shrink and said you wanted to be gay, they wouldn't be much help to you. Though it would be hilarious, and I want to hear the "pranked shrink" mp3 when you do it. As I understand it, most of these guys make a living trying to "help" gay people turn straight.
The problem is that psychology is no long a subset of shamanism. Back in the day before Malleus Maleficarum, say, all you had to do was shake a stick, chant a few incantations, and The Gay would be gone. Just like that. Uh, except for the occasional wide stance now and then. But sometime since then, picky liberal college professors have swept psychology into the domain of science. That means there needs to be empirical evidence to support theories and, in clinical psychology, empirical evidence that treatment strategies are effective. PS Please don't think this means I have anything against shamanism. I can just see the comments...
This makes it unnecessarily tough for the religious shrink who just wants to bring strays back to the flock. Because now, say you want to hang out a shingle to make gay people straight, because of this science business you have to show some evidence that what you're doing works. You can't just shake a rattle and sprinkle some herbs around the room, you need to point to books on a university library shelf, and say, see, there it is, scientific proof, this really works.
And the evidence has been ... slim, let's say. You won't find very many people out there who decided what their sexual orientation would be. You reach an age, it just happens. But this branch ofshamanism psychotherapy specializes in converting gay people to straight. So it just has to work.
This week a couple of guys from Christian colleges, Wheaton College and Regent University, issued a press release about their new book. Nobody has seen the actual book yet, it's not out, but Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse gave a presentation at the American Association of Christian Counselors World Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where they went over data gathered from self-acclaimed "ex-gays." The good news is that they did ask a lot of the questions that had drawn a curtain of confusion over Spitzer's previous study, which was the only one that ever showed any chance that gay people could become straight.
But, listen people, this is bad. As I mentioned above, psychology is a science. There are methods, standards, procedures, that must be maintained by real psychologists. Science is a society that polices itself. Every scientific paper goes through a process called peer review, which is the very essence of the scientific method. It's what makes science works. And it goes like this. You do some research, get some results, write them up, and then you submit that document to a jury of your peers. You send your paper to a journal and the editor sends it out to experts in your field, who are selfishly motivated to find something wrong with it. They know the details of your procedures, the history of every technique you use, the arguments over every theoretical twist and turn, and they will criticize your paper expertly. Then you change it, and it goes back and forth, until it meets their standard.
You get through that, and the journal will publish your work. It's not perfect, but it is the best system I can imagine, and it has resulted in an explosion of knowledge over the past couple of centuries. It's science, and it serves us well.
But Jones and Yarhouse chose not to participate in science. Instead, they gathered their data like a scientist would do, they wrote it up so it looked like science, they announced it at a scientific-sounding religious conference, but they failed to submit the material to peer review. It's not science. They can do whatever they want, call it anything their agent likes, but if it didn't go through peer review, it isn't science.
Naturally, groups like NARTH, some religious groups, the Family Blah Blah groups, etcetera, don't care if it's really science. The point of "research" is to confirm what you already know, so who needs a bunch of peer-whatever?
On the other hand, there are some who are reading this a little more carefully. The words "critical" and "skeptical" come to mind -- science words, sorry. Remember, all there is so far is a conference presentation and a press release. The book won't be out till next month. Here's how Timothy Kincaid, writing at Box Turtle Bulletin, summarizes the information that's available at this time:
OK, this is pretty good to see, I'm glad he's broken it down like this. The numbers don't add up, though there will probably be an explanation.
Timothy notes:
Oh great, that's what we all dream off, a reduction in our sexual desire. This is a great success, I'm sure.
Anybody have a good explanation just why somebody would want to reduce their natural, God-given sexual desire? Is that what makes Viagra such a failure in the drug market?
BTB quotes a paragraph from Christianity Today (linked above):
In case this analysis is getting too hard to follow, here's the wrap-up:
Being heterosexual doesn't seem very complicated, does it? I mean for actual straight people. It appears to work pretty much automatically. I mean for actual straight people.
To understand this, try turning it around. Imagine the world was a different place, and straight people were the weird ones. Imagine that if you liked the opposite sex, everybody would want to "fix" you. How effective would that be -- I mean, for you yourself?
Two things. It's not science. If they went to all this trouble to collect this data, and these guys are "college" professors even, with doctorates we assume, they should know how the game works -- why didn't they submit this study to a respectable journal? Why go directly to a publisher with it? Did they think this was too ... I don't know, ... powerful ... too true ... to pass through peer review? Did they try it and fail? Why would you disguise something as science and publish it commercially, if you were serious about it?
Second, it doesn't sound like anybody actually changes, even when they really want to. Even when you search out the best "success" stories. I hate to tell you, but reducing your desire for same-sex partners isn't the same as being straight.
The problem is that psychology is no long a subset of shamanism. Back in the day before Malleus Maleficarum, say, all you had to do was shake a stick, chant a few incantations, and The Gay would be gone. Just like that. Uh, except for the occasional wide stance now and then. But sometime since then, picky liberal college professors have swept psychology into the domain of science. That means there needs to be empirical evidence to support theories and, in clinical psychology, empirical evidence that treatment strategies are effective. PS Please don't think this means I have anything against shamanism. I can just see the comments...
This makes it unnecessarily tough for the religious shrink who just wants to bring strays back to the flock. Because now, say you want to hang out a shingle to make gay people straight, because of this science business you have to show some evidence that what you're doing works. You can't just shake a rattle and sprinkle some herbs around the room, you need to point to books on a university library shelf, and say, see, there it is, scientific proof, this really works.
And the evidence has been ... slim, let's say. You won't find very many people out there who decided what their sexual orientation would be. You reach an age, it just happens. But this branch of
This week a couple of guys from Christian colleges, Wheaton College and Regent University, issued a press release about their new book. Nobody has seen the actual book yet, it's not out, but Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse gave a presentation at the American Association of Christian Counselors World Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where they went over data gathered from self-acclaimed "ex-gays." The good news is that they did ask a lot of the questions that had drawn a curtain of confusion over Spitzer's previous study, which was the only one that ever showed any chance that gay people could become straight.
But, listen people, this is bad. As I mentioned above, psychology is a science. There are methods, standards, procedures, that must be maintained by real psychologists. Science is a society that polices itself. Every scientific paper goes through a process called peer review, which is the very essence of the scientific method. It's what makes science works. And it goes like this. You do some research, get some results, write them up, and then you submit that document to a jury of your peers. You send your paper to a journal and the editor sends it out to experts in your field, who are selfishly motivated to find something wrong with it. They know the details of your procedures, the history of every technique you use, the arguments over every theoretical twist and turn, and they will criticize your paper expertly. Then you change it, and it goes back and forth, until it meets their standard.
You get through that, and the journal will publish your work. It's not perfect, but it is the best system I can imagine, and it has resulted in an explosion of knowledge over the past couple of centuries. It's science, and it serves us well.
But Jones and Yarhouse chose not to participate in science. Instead, they gathered their data like a scientist would do, they wrote it up so it looked like science, they announced it at a scientific-sounding religious conference, but they failed to submit the material to peer review. It's not science. They can do whatever they want, call it anything their agent likes, but if it didn't go through peer review, it isn't science.
Naturally, groups like NARTH, some religious groups, the Family Blah Blah groups, etcetera, don't care if it's really science. The point of "research" is to confirm what you already know, so who needs a bunch of peer-whatever?
On the other hand, there are some who are reading this a little more carefully. The words "critical" and "skeptical" come to mind -- science words, sorry. Remember, all there is so far is a conference presentation and a press release. The book won't be out till next month. Here's how Timothy Kincaid, writing at Box Turtle Bulletin, summarizes the information that's available at this time:
It appears that the study was over four years and included 98 people who were referred by various Exodus ministries.
- 33 people reported change in the desired manner (from gay at time 1 in the heterosexual direction at time 3)
- 29 reported no change
- 8 reported change in the undesired direction
- 3 were unsure how to describe their experience of change
and 25 people discontinued participation in the study during that time. The study also reports:
- Success: Conversion - There were subjects who reported that they felt their change to be successful and reported substantial reduction in homosexual desire and addition of heterosexual attraction and functioning at Time 3. 15% met these criteria.
- Success: Chastity - These people experienced satisfactory reductions in homosexual desire and were living chaste lives. 23% were in this category.
- Continuing - These persons experienced only modest change in the desired direction but expressed commitment to continue. 29% were in this category.
- No-response - These people experienced no change and were conflicted about the future even though they had not given up. 15% were here.
- Failure (from their perspective): Confused - No change reported and had given up but did not label themselves gay. 4% were in this group
- Failure: Gay identity - No change, no pursuit and had come as gay. 8% were in this category.
Assuming that these are percentages of the 73 participants who made it to the fourth year, this would break out as follows:
- Success: Conversion - 11
- Success: Chastity - 17
- Continuing - 21
- No-response - 11
- Failure: Confused - 3
- Failure: Gay identity - 6
With four people left unaccounted for.
OK, this is pretty good to see, I'm glad he's broken it down like this. The numbers don't add up, though there will probably be an explanation.
Timothy notes:
Try as I might, I can’t get these two findings to reconcile. Did 33 people report a change in the positive direction, or did 28? Did 8 people identify as gay or did 6?
...At present, we can only conclude that, at best:
Perhaps eleven percent of an nonrepresentative sample of 98 highly motivated gay people who went through Exodus programs reported that after four years there was “substantial reduction in homosexual desire and addition of heterosexual attraction and functioning”.
Oh great, that's what we all dream off, a reduction in our sexual desire. This is a great success, I'm sure.
Anybody have a good explanation just why somebody would want to reduce their natural, God-given sexual desire? Is that what makes Viagra such a failure in the drug market?
BTB quotes a paragraph from Christianity Today (linked above):
Most of the individuals who reported that they were heterosexual at Time 3 did not report themselves to be without experience of homosexual arousal, and did not report heterosexual orientation to be unequivocal and uncomplicated. … We believe the individuals who presented themselves as heterosexual success stories at Time 3 are heterosexual in some meaningful but complicated sense of the term.
In case this analysis is getting too hard to follow, here's the wrap-up:
These sound less like Mom and Dad heterosexuals and more like Larry Craig heterosexuals. In other words, the number of individuals who went from plain old gay to plain old straight: zero.
Being heterosexual doesn't seem very complicated, does it? I mean for actual straight people. It appears to work pretty much automatically. I mean for actual straight people.
To understand this, try turning it around. Imagine the world was a different place, and straight people were the weird ones. Imagine that if you liked the opposite sex, everybody would want to "fix" you. How effective would that be -- I mean, for you yourself?
Two things. It's not science. If they went to all this trouble to collect this data, and these guys are "college" professors even, with doctorates we assume, they should know how the game works -- why didn't they submit this study to a respectable journal? Why go directly to a publisher with it? Did they think this was too ... I don't know, ... powerful ... too true ... to pass through peer review? Did they try it and fail? Why would you disguise something as science and publish it commercially, if you were serious about it?
Second, it doesn't sound like anybody actually changes, even when they really want to. Even when you search out the best "success" stories. I hate to tell you, but reducing your desire for same-sex partners isn't the same as being straight.
posted by JimK at 11:18 AM
13 Comments:
Again -- most people with a desire to fit into a particular group, and especially a religious community, can make enough of an effort to change their behavior. You can control your desire, and you can fake the opposite desire, fantasizing while you play at straight sex, etc. People, such as Larry Craig, Mark Foley, etc. do this all the time.
So what? It is not a change in one's neurologically-based sexual orientation. The brain may be plastic, but this kind of change appears to be rare to impossible.
"They can do whatever they want, call it anything their agent likes, but if it didn't go through peer review, it isn't science."
With this statement, Jim officially goes off the deep end. Hope he brought an oxygen mask!
Plenty of foundational studies, resulting in key discoveries, essential to all types of scientific fields were never peer reviewed. They aren't science?
Peer review, while a valuable process, has been oversold by its participants. Considering the vast numbers of journals in existence, each with their own editor, it's a little ridiculous to vouch for the integrity of them all. If there is a paper that a certain editor wants to publish, much like the MCPS CAC, they now what researchers to select to review the papers.
Additionally, peer review checks the logic of a paper but not its validity, not the integrity of its data. A researcher could write a paper based on completely fabricated data and have the same likelihood of clearing peer review.
Here's a quote from Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet:
"The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability -- not the validity -- of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong."
Sounds like he knows what of he speaks.
[edit] Allegations of bias and suppression
This is true. Peer review isn't an audit of findings and doesn't involve replication.
Take it off the pedestal!
"It is not a change in one's neurologically-based sexual orientation. The brain may be plastic, but this kind of change appears to be rare to impossible."
Sneaky, Dr.
Sexual preference isn't neurologically-based. Not a consequence of actual brain structures. The brain doesn't need to change, the desire does.
turkish daffy said...
"It is not a change in one's neurologically-based sexual orientation. The brain may be plastic, but this kind of change appears to be rare to impossible."
Sneaky, Dr.
Sexual preference isn't neurologically-based. Not a consequence of actual brain structures. The brain doesn't need to change, the desire does.
__
Touche’ turkish daffy, and how much sneakier of you to avoid the point.
“The brain doesn't need to change, the desire does.”
Sounds like the, “there is no gay gene” propaganda meme to me. As though there is a gene for sexual orientation, or more importantly, a gene to “prove” human beings are sexual and desire to love and be loved.
Tell me, oh wise turkish daffy, how does one change one’s desire to love and be loved, or be or not be sexual for that matter? Do you have personal experience with this process which you’d like to share with the rest of us – especially seeing as you seem to already apply this concept to the rest of humanity.
Turkish Daffy said...
"They can do whatever they want, call it anything their agent likes, but if it didn't go through peer review, it isn't science."
With this statement, Jim officially goes off the deep end. Hope he brought an oxygen mask!
__
JIMK: “Every scientific paper goes through a process called peer review, which is the very essence of the scientific method. It's what makes science works. And it goes like this. You do some research, get some results, write them up, and then you submit that document to a jury of your peers. You send your paper to a journal and the editor sends it out to experts in your field, who are selfishly motivated to find something wrong with it. They know the details of your procedures, the history of every technique you use, the arguments over every theoretical twist and turn, and they will criticize your paper expertly. Then you change it, and it goes back and forth, until it meets their standard.”
Yes, how simplistic of JimK. Are you a troll, or just daft, daffy?
__
"Plenty of foundational studies, resulting in key discoveries, essential to all types of scientific fields were never peer reviewed. They aren't science?"
Wow, I’m blown away by NONE of the examples that you’ve given, especially in regard to their association with the easily documentably ridiculously biased and faulty methodology and claims of this particular study.
Peer review, while a valuable process, has been oversold by its participants. Considering the vast numbers of journals in existence, each with their own editor, it's a little ridiculous to vouch for the integrity of them all. If there is a paper that a certain editor wants to publish, much like the MCPS CAC, they [k]now what researchers to select to review the papers.
Peer review is an oversold process eh? Except Jim’s not “vouching” for the integrity of all papers, but the process itself. Nice red herring though.
Additionally, peer review checks the logic of a paper but not its validity, not the integrity of its data. A researcher could write a paper based on completely fabricated data and have the same likelihood of clearing peer review.
Scientifically speaking, without “the logic of a paper,” how is one supposed to prove the validity or integrity of its data? Again, I’m just blown away by the absence of evidence of your claims.
We’re talking about a specific “study” here, not concepts. And there’s enough veritable truth about this particular study to argue over without resorting to obfuscatory esoteria. Or is that all you’ve got? Like this:
Here's a quote from Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet:
"The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability -- not the validity -- of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong."
Sounds like he knows what of he speaks.
Yeah, “sounds like” sounds real scientific and logical. And as Jim already acknowledged, it's not perfect, but it's the best we've got so far. (not a perfect quote, but the way he put it was even more humble)
As I see your argument - any attempt to validate truth objectively is EQUAL to absolutely NO attempt to validate truth objectively.
Is this the case you wish to make?
And again, what does your personal disdain for peer review have to add to the validation of the study at hand that we are currently discussing?
Peer review is used by virtually every government agency that funds grants as required by the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, which says
Peer review is an important procedure used by the scientific community to ensure that the quality of published information. Peer review can increase the quality and credibility of the scientific information generated across the federal government. This Bulletin is one aspect of a larger OMB effort to improve the quality of the scientific information upon which policy decisions are based.
http://www.cio.noaa.gov/itmanagement/OMB_Peer_Review_Bulletin_m05-03.pdf
These government granting agencies include, but are not limited to the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, Health and Human Services, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality...I could keep going but I think you get the point.
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer_review_process.htm
http://0-www.cdc.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org/od/science/PHResearch/peerreview.htm
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/aireports/i13f0017.pdf
http://www.science.doe.gov/grants/merit.html
http://aspe.hhs.gov/infoquality/peer.shtml
http://www.ahrq.gov/fund/appover.htm
University and other private organizations also fund grants for research and utilize the peer review process to determine which proposals show promise and rigor.
Virtually all funded researchers submit to peer review in the interest of strengthening their work, making it more valid and meaningful. You'd think these NARTH "researchers" would be confident enough in their procedures, experimental designs, and other details to seek the validation of other researchers in the field. But they don't.
Maybe they shun peer review because they feel they're on a mission for God so they answer to a higher authority. Hebrew National says the same thing about their hotdogs ("We answer to a higher authority"), but they allow inspectors to review their process in order to assure the public they do it right.
The brain doesn't need to change, the desire does.
pfffttt!!!
Well, there's a mouthful of decent New Zealand sav.blanc gone for good.
As a rough survey, is there anyone here (apart from aptly named "daffy") who also fails to appreciate and desire at all sorts of conscious, brain-functioning, no-I-really-do-know-it's-you levels... their partner???
Perhaps daffy is living proof, at last, that for some the little head does indeed rule the big head. Lucky for the rest of us, a lone individual.
(Dare we guess: one day daffy may even achieve more than a one-night stand who awakes in fright at 5am, willingly cuts their arm off and thereby vanishes into the dawn without waking "her".)
Here's a clue daffy, for future success: at least pretend your "desire" comes from your brain, even if you don't "believe" that it does. Even be so forward as to ask their name, and that sort of polite stuff.
(and, sure as eggs (sic), daffy cannot be female but why name himself after a female duck???)
You guys attract the oddest anti-Vigilance people at times, such a laugh we admit, but more seriously...
The Jones and Yarhouse book appears even more weary a stretch than we thought either would willingly put their name to. Plainly we either don't know them well enough, not that we do, or perhaps they've simply rushed into print to begin battle with the APA sexuality task-force over the next 6-12 months.
It's hundreds of pages of mostly mind-numbing religion-based silliness, much of it completely unrelated to the claimed research topic. So give us all a few days to actually read and then comment on the book.
"We all" will, rest assured.
Oh -- it's Box Turtle and ExGayWatch, of course.
(Bottom line: they claim, based on uncontested self-reports from a small number of hand-selected exgays, that 11% of participants really, truly, honestly, did change their sexual attractions. Not that this means they have successfully become heterosexual husbands and wives, mind, just that they claim to have changed their sexual attractions.)
BTW, as a lark, we went totally heterosexual just now while we were typing. Honest. See how easy "change" is -- and it's up to you prove we are lying, delusional or making this cr@p up until we come to terms with ourselves!
Cheers, and best wishes to all you regulars over here. Been awhile.
G&D
(also constantly "changing", but never in a non-gay way)
It's too nice a day to spend too much time countering all this agenda-justifying BS but will respond briefly to improv's comment that I have provided no examples of foundational scientific discoveries presented in non-peer-reviewed articles.
Actually, most papers prior to the mid-twentieth century weren't peer-reviewed. An excellent example after peer review became common is the paper on the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick published in Nature in 1953. Said John Maddox, the editor of Nature at the time:
"the Watson and Crick paper was not peer-reviewed by Nature... the paper could not have been refereed: its correctness is self-evident"
So contrary to Jim's assertion, it can be science without peer review. Even more debatable is Jim's assertion that peer review has led to an "explosion of knowledge." Ridiculous!
Peer review has been formalized today, though different disciplines and different journals have different policies about how it's implemented. The essence of it is this: science is a social process. Anybody can do research, but in order to get it published in a reputable journal it has to meet the standard of that journal's editorial staff and the selected reviewers. Researchers in the field know what journals are reputable -- for instance, Psychological Review is very reputable, Psychological Reports is not at all.
Science has always been peer-reviewed at some level, in order for research to become integrated into the knowledge of the academy it has to prove itself to have met the standards of the academy, and the academy decides that. Not the public, the elite scholars in the field.
The result is the unprecedented explosion of knowledge that unfortunately does not offer much support to any particular interpretation of the Bible.
JimK
"Peer review has been formalized today, though different disciplines and different journals have different policies about how it's implemented."
Stanton's research is coming out in a book which is the reason it isn't going through your "formalized" process. Are you saying only journals can publish "true science"?
"The essence of it is this: science is a social process."
Absolutley. Why do you think these guys aren't part of it?
"Anybody can do research, but in order to get it published in a reputable journal it has to meet the standard of that journal's editorial staff and the selected reviewers."
Stanton is not just anybody. He is a professor at a well respected university.
"Researchers in the field know what journals are reputable -- for instance, Psychological Review is very reputable, Psychological Reports is not at all."
Some can actually get abook published too.
"Science has always been peer-reviewed at some level, in order for research to become integrated into the knowledge of the academy it has to prove itself to have met the standards of the academy, and the academy decides that. Not the public, the elite scholars in the field."
The elite scholars have historically been a roadblock to new insights and knowledge that doesn't support the status quo. If the elite had had its way, concepts from heliocentrism to the big bang might still be secret.
"The result is the unprecedented explosion of knowledge"
Again, nothing wrong with peer review if it's value is properly assessed. It is now a catalyst to an explosion of knowledge, however. If you'll read some autobiographies of some of history's great thinkers, you'll find the desire to know God better by studying his creation has most often been the driving force to greater levels of knowledge.
"that unfortunately does not offer much support to any particular interpretation of the Bible."
There are great thinkers and accomplished scientists who would disagree with you there, my friend.
Again, nothing wrong with peer review if it's value is properly assessed. It is now a catalyst to an explosion of knowledge, however. If you'll read some autobiographies of some of history's great thinkers, you'll find the desire to know God better by studying his creation has most often been the driving force to greater levels of knowledge.
Turkish Daffy said "Sexual preference isn't neurologically-based. Not a consequence of actual brain structures. The brain doesn't need to change, the desire does.".
Wrong. It is neurologically based. Studies of brain structures in men, women, and gays show a sexually dimorphic nucleus that varies in size according to the gender one is attracted to. Studies in gay and straight sheep show that the same structure exists in sheep brains and relates as well to the gender one is attracted too. While the research isn't absolute proof, it combined with other studies showing a biological basis for gayness make it highly unlikely that this doesn't have a neurological basis. Certainly there is no evidence to support your blind statement that there isn't a neurological basis.
Doorkish Taffy said "Stanton is not just anybody. He is a professor at a well respected university.".
Stanton and Yarhouse are less than "anybodies". They are both from religious universites and this means they have fallen prey to the falsehoods all religion is based on - that one accepts a conclusion and then searches for evidence to support it rather than first looking at the evidence prior to drawing conclusions. Because of their religious backgrounds they have pre-judged that being gay is a sin and a choice and filter out all evidence that contradicts that and consider only evidence that can be twisted to support that conclusion reached in advance.
This faulty reasoning process can be seen in their study where they ignored the 25 people who dropped out of the study and the implications that had for their "success" rate. They didn't choose to follow up on those dropouts as it no doubt had negative implications for their "success" rate and they didn't choose to factor those failures into their calculations, simply preferring to pretend these weren't actual failures of the process.
The study was paid for by Exodus thus providing strong additional incentive to lie to please the people providing the paycheck for the study. As a former government employee in a scientific establishment I know this to be a well known and predictable shortcoming in all contracted research - you tend to get the results you want to hear because that's where the money is for the consultants.
In the end all religiously based research is tainted. Religious organizations have a deeply seated desire to accept ancient suppositions without evidence and to filter reality to admit only that which supports the strongly desired biases. The majority of religious groups have decided in advance that being gay is bad and can and should be changed and Stanton and Yarhouse have obviously done their best to continue this unjustified conclusion.
Stanton's research is coming out in a book which is the reason it isn't going through your "formalized" process.
You got that backwards. The study wouldn't make it through peer review, formalized or not. Instead of Regent U or Wheaton College paying for this "research," it was funded by Exodus and is being published by Intervarsity Press. Intervarsity Press is a division of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, which has been publishing Christian books for more than 50 years. They are much better known for publishing good theology than good science.
"The essence of it is this: science is a social process."
Absolutley. Why do you think these guys aren't part of it?
Maybe it's because they're anti-social when it comes to homosexuals. The only homosexuals they respect are those who deny their nature by either hiding in the closet pretending to be straight or celibacy.
Stanton is not just anybody. He is a professor at a well respected university.
Wheaton College is probably well respected by Christians who admire its Billy Graham Center, or Center for Applied Christian Ethics, or Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. Its Biology program overview states The Department of Biology bases its approach to biology on the Biblical view of God as creator and sustainer of the universe, introducing biology majors and other students to the concepts of biology and helping them to discover and interpret the characteristics of nature as part of God’s creation.
http://www.wheaton.edu/Biology/overview.html
And the Psychology program overview states The Wheaton College Department of Psychology, through its undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs, strives to educate its students in a manner grounded in, informed by, and shaped by the beliefs and practices of the Christian faith. We recognize that psychology is a diverse and rich discipline and that each student has a unique set of interests, gifts, and learning styles. As a result, each program is designed to familiarize students in the traditional theoretical, empirical, and applied areas of psychology and clinical psychology, how to conduct psychological research, and how to evaluate the important theories and presuppositions in psychology from a Christian perspective.
http://www.wheaton.edu/psychology/undergrad/overview/index.html
If the "how to conduct psychological research" part was true, they'd teach the value of peer review instead of shunning it.
But it doesn't really matter anyway because the college isn't involved in this research, only a single professor. Lots of professors make outside money to supplant their income and Jones is entitled to do so, but let's call this study what it is. It's ex-gay industry funded research on ex-gay industry efficacy. Anybody who expects that to be anything but pro-ex-gay industry, well....
The elite scholars have historically been a roadblock to new insights and knowledge that doesn't support the status quo.
You mean like Christian elite scholars who train students to base their biological research on the Biblical view of God as creator and sustainer of the universe and to analyze psychological theories from a Christian perspective? Such Christians don't just support the Christian status quo, they seek to convert everyone, not just gays, to believe as they do. And they're quite eager to appear scientific in their attempts to convince the world that change in sexual orientation is possible while avoiding scientific peer review.
If the elite had had its way, concepts from heliocentrism to the big bang might still be secret.
The only "elite" that tried to keep the concept of heliocentrism from the world is the Christian "elite" of the Catholic variety. They had Copernicus' book, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, which had been published in 1543, placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of books banned as heretical by the Catholic Church. It was not removed from the Index until 1758.
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