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Major Gay Marriage Study Was Fabricated, Author Admits
Daily Caller ^ | 5/20/15 | Blake Neff

Posted on 05/20/2015 2:45:02 PM PDT by markomalley

A study purporting to show that people’s views on gay marriage could change simply by meeting gay people has been retracted following revelations that its data was fabricated.

The study was published last December in Science, and prior to publication drew a great deal of attention from the American media. Vox, for instance, described the findings in the study as “kind of miraculous.” As it turns out, that’s exactly what they were, because they were apparently made up.

According to the study, people from communities hostile to gay marriage could have their opinions shift dramatically after spending just a few minutes speaking with a gay person who canvassed their neighborhood promoting gay marriage. Not only that, but this could have a spillover effect, making not just the people themselves more pro-gay but also other people who lived in the same household.

The study, among other things, lent support to the notion that those opposed to gay marriage simply don’t know or interact with open homosexuals. More broadly, it was seen as an important development in the science of how people can be convinced to change their minds on ideologically-charged issues.

The study began to fall apart when students at the University of California at Berkeley sought to conduct additional research building off of it, only to find major irregularities in how its research was apparently conducted. For example, thermometers used to measure participants body temperatures produced consistent, reliable information, even though they are known for producing relatively unreliable numbers.

Also, the data recovered had an exceptionally consistent distribution, with not a single one of the 12,000 supposed participants providing anomalous or unusual results. In other words, the study’s data was too perfect to be believable.

Donald Green, a professor at Columbia University and a co-author of the paper, made the decision to retract it after having a confrontation with co-author Michael LaCour, a graduate student at UCLA. While LaCour maintained that he hadn’t fabricated the data, he was also unable to produce the original source files supposedly used to produce it. When he failed to write-up a retraction, Green took the initiative and did so himself.

“I am deeply embarrassed by this turn of events and apologize to the editors, reviewers, and readers of Science,” Green told Retraction Watch, a science watchdog website.

LaCour, the graduate student accused of fabricating at least some of the data, made a Twitter post Wednesday afternoon saying he was “gathering evidence” about what had occurred:



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government
KEYWORDS: fake; gays; homosexualagenda; homosexuals; sciencetrust
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1 posted on 05/20/2015 2:45:02 PM PDT by markomalley
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To: markomalley

I am so... (ahem)... surprised....


2 posted on 05/20/2015 2:46:03 PM PDT by fwdude (The last time the GOP ran an "extremist," Reagan won 44 states.)
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To: markomalley

Shocking.


3 posted on 05/20/2015 2:46:48 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo (Make A Donation To Free Republic Today)
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To: markomalley

So they made up a bunch of stuff???
In the New Amerika, the ONLY thing that matters is that the press release pimped an approved Democrat meme.


4 posted on 05/20/2015 2:47:35 PM PDT by tcrlaf (They told me it could never happen in America. And then it did....)
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To: markomalley

Bump


5 posted on 05/20/2015 2:50:01 PM PDT by lowbridge
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To: fwdude

That’s so gay.....


6 posted on 05/20/2015 2:50:18 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: markomalley
I am of the opinion that the public has not shifted as dramatically in favor of gays as recent polling is indicating.

I believe the reason the polls have shifted so dramatically in the gays favor is black support for obama spilling over into this issue.

Before Obama blacks were as a group the most anti-gay race in America. Black churches are notorious for railing against homosexuals. So, even though they voted Democrat, blacks used to be aligned with Republicans on this particular issue. But having the first black president so heavily support the sodomites has forced blacks to support sodomites too or risk abandoning their man in the white house.

What is yet to be seen is if this will continue much beyond Obama’s tenure. It's very possible that after Obama is out of office the black community (led by it's churches) might turn strongly against sodomy again.

7 posted on 05/20/2015 2:51:30 PM PDT by TexasFreeper2009 (You can't spell Hillary without using the letters L, I, A, & R)
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To: markomalley
Vox, for instance, described the findings in the study as “kind of miraculous.”

LOL. Science can deliver any miracle you want. Just bring out your checkbook or find a like minded ideologue with the right credentials. It has been this way since Rachel Carson.

8 posted on 05/20/2015 2:52:13 PM PDT by Mase (Save me from the people who would save me from myself!)
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To: markomalley

I have had conversations with queers over my 67yr life and not one of them changed my mind about their putrid existence. Not One!


9 posted on 05/20/2015 2:53:50 PM PDT by Red_Devil 232 ((VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!))
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To: TexasFreeper2009
Or they're just making up the poll results now. Welcome to Obamica.

-PJ

10 posted on 05/20/2015 2:57:02 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: markomalley

Science is taking the path of news media and becoming tabloid science.


11 posted on 05/20/2015 2:58:43 PM PDT by oldbrowser (We have a rogue government in Washington.)
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To: markomalley

All polls and all MSM is for “proper perceptions” of the ignorant masses. They promote lies and eject Reason and Truth, to control the proper emotions of the masses.

Lies are now “Truth” and Truth is not allowed in the public square since God/Truth was banned by the fascist Supreme Court in the 60s.

We have had unconstitutional “laws” which are “Null and Void” according to Justice John Marshall, since O. W. Holmes, jr took Virtue out of our “Justice” System (which is impossible—and makes promoting Vice (unconstitutional) “Good” and a “Right” which perverts and ejects the US Constitution.)

All Just Law has to promote “public virtue” only——and these polls are to “progress” us into Satanism and paganism, since ONLY Christianity is banned from the Public Square. The Leftists have to flip Good and Evil in the minds of our children to make “happy slavery” “Good”.

When Law promotes Vice, civil society will collapse always (Cicero). Vice breeds vice.


12 posted on 05/20/2015 2:59:35 PM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
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To: markomalley

They made up the data.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

LOL


13 posted on 05/20/2015 3:02:04 PM PDT by savedbygrace (But God!)
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To: TexasFreeper2009
I believe the reason the polls have shifted so dramatically in the gays favor is black support for obama spilling over into this issue.

I don't buy that either. The activists have gone to every city council in Michigan to get gay specific civil rights ordinances and to ask them to sue the state for continuing to fight gay marriage. Every single black run city council (Detroit, Flint, Ypsilanti, and Benton harbor) has either refused to take up the issue or outright voted no.
14 posted on 05/20/2015 3:02:16 PM PDT by cripplecreek ("For by wise guidance you can wage your war")
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To: markomalley

But they used statistics!


15 posted on 05/20/2015 3:03:09 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie (ISIS: Islam's Reformation)
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To: markomalley
published last December in Science...

Another filthy politicized rag masquerading as a scientific journal.
16 posted on 05/20/2015 3:05:07 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: markomalley

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, gays said that they comprised 10% of the US population and the media was happy to publish that. It was a blatant lie. Numerous studies have shown that gays are only 2-3% of the population. Truth is NOT an important value to Leftists. attaining power is EVERYTHING to them. Think of their lies about global warming, DDT, heterosexual AIDS, etc. Then think about Obama and Hillary. Lying is as natural as breathing to them. Leftists do NOT care about Truth.


17 posted on 05/20/2015 3:10:14 PM PDT by DeweyCA
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To: markomalley

“people hostile to ______ could have their opinions shift
after spending just a few minutes speaking with a _____ .”
-
Fill in the blank with:
Liars
Cheaters
Thieves
Drunks
Drug Abusers
Child Abusers
Adulterers
Braggarts
Show-offs
Grifters
Sloths
Greedy People
Arrogant People
Communists
Sociaists
Liberals
Democrats
Nose Pickers
Queers
-
I avoid associating with a lot of people.
I just call it my “Freedom of Association”.
I just don’t want to have anything to do with them.


18 posted on 05/20/2015 3:10:21 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th ("We The People" have met the enemy; and it is "We The People".)
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To: cripplecreek
I don't buy that either. The activists have gone to every city council in Michigan to get gay specific civil rights ordinances and to ask them to sue the state for continuing to fight gay marriage. Every single black run city council (Detroit, Flint, Ypsilanti, and Benton harbor) has either refused to take up the issue or outright voted no.

Detroit, Flint and Ypsilanti each have non-discrimination ordinances that cover sexual orientation.

19 posted on 05/20/2015 3:15:45 PM PDT by Conscience of a Conservative
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To: markomalley

The stink is not JUST on the UCLA graduate student and Columbia professor who co-author the study.

Both higher ed institutions will take hits as well.

Who funded the study? Should ask for a refund.


20 posted on 05/20/2015 3:16:37 PM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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