Posted on 12/29/2002 8:59:44 AM PST by scripter
It was until they took it out. It belonged there for the reasons given by the people who wrote it in, in the first place.
The people who took it out -- Sabshin, Marmor, Spitzer et al., relied on Evelyn Hooker's UCLA study. But Hooker's sample was influenced by politically active participants, and she dropped some of the people who were emotionally less stable, in order to make the claim that homosexuality per se wasn't a disorder, in people who were not otherwise disordered. Sort of a circular argument -- but nice work if you can get it.
It all boils down to an argument that "you can't say that about us!!" Which IMHO is a form of the popular fallacy, argument ad populum. Pyromaniacs could say the same thing, and kleptomaniacs -- and dipsomaniacs sometimes do, particularly when speaking in the first person. But diagnosis isn't up to the patient, and there shouldn't have been any gays, closeted or otherwise, involved in the reconsideration of homosexuality as a paraphilia in the DSM. It was a professional and ethical conflict of the first order.
How do you know that? Or are you arguing your conclusion as a premise, a priori?
I look forward to seeing the material from Bell. Thank you for going to the trouble.
Well then, what was the purpose of Bell & Weinberg's study? If its results can't be extrapolated to the general population of homosexuals, why did they go to all that trouble?
Are you finally admitting that you can't possibly make your case based on actual data? That you do not have a genuine scientific reason for wanting to claim: "all gays are sick?"
No, I'm not. I've repeatedly directed your attention to the mountain of peer-reviewed research data that was not authored by Paul Cameron, including not only Bell & Weinberg, but also Jay & Young, Gebhard & Johnson's rehabilitation of the Kinsey data, and dozens of others.
The problem here is that the researchers themselves are far from agreement on a definition of what a "homosexual" is. If we limit the definition to non-incarcerated adults who are exclusively having sex with persons of the same gender, it would probably be about 1-2%.
If we expand the definition to include anyone who has ever had sexual contact with, or felt a sexual interest in, another person of the same gender (including current and former prison inmates), it might go as high as 10%.
It seems to me that the logical definition would be limited to persons who are currently attracted to persons of the same gender. This number might be around 2-3%.
The Evelyn Hooker Study and the Normalization of Homosexuality
By Thomas Landess
Evelyn Hooker has been among the most influential figures in the highly successful movement to convince the American people that homosexuality is a "normal variant" of human sexual behavior. Her 1957 study, "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual" (Journal of Projective Techniques, 1957, 21:18-31) is the most frequently cited scientific source for the argument that homosexuality is not a pathology, that homosexuals are as free from mental disorder as heterosexuals.
Such assertions have not only found their way into standard psychology textbooks but have also provided a scientific basis for decisions in major court cases involving the legality of state sodomy laws and prohibitions against homosexual employment in certain state and local agencies (e.g., schools, police departments).
Indeed, when the American Psychiatric Association debated the issue of homosexuality in 1973, Evelyn Hooker's work was Exhibit A for those who wanted to remove homosexuality from the group's list of mental disorders.
For many commentators and activists, the Hooker study effectively ended the debate over whether or not homosexuals were in any way abnormal in their relationships with each other and with the community at large. Today many Americans have accepted the idea that homosexuality is "normal" and "healthy" without realizing that such an opinion is derived in large measure from a single study -- one conducted by a UCLA professor whose previous laboratory subjects had been rats.
In all this extravagant homage to Hooker and her study, several points have escaped her admirers, to say nothing of the federal courts:
1. In her 1957 report, Evelyn Hooker did not use a random sample to test the stability of homosexuals, but allowed gay rights activists to recruit those homosexuals most likely to illustrate her thesis that homosexuality is not a pathology. Individuals who proved unstable were deleted from the final sample.
2. Hooker's published account of how she recruited heterosexual subjects is not consistent with a more detailed later account.
3. Six subjects in her study, three from each group, had engaged in both homosexual and heterosexual behavior beyond adolescence.
4. Hooker made several errors in her mathematical calculations that raise doubts about her care and competence as a researcher.
5. Hooker did not attempt to prove that homosexuals were normal in every way, nor does her study support the idea that homosexuals as a group are just as stable as heterosexuals.
6. Hooker was relatively inexperienced in administering the Rorschach test, and this inexperience may have led to mistakes in the administration and evaluation of the Rorschach.
7. On the Thematic Apperception Test and the Make-A-Picture-Story test -- which require subjects to make up fictional narratives about depicted scenes -- the homosexuals could not refrain from including homosexual fantasies in their imaginary accounts. For that reason, Hooker altered the nature of the study by no longer asking the judges to use the TAT and MAPS in an attempt to determine the sexual orientation of each of the 60 subjects, since the differences were apparent from the narratives.
Oh please tell the moderators! You have posted about a thousand posts and each and everyone of them has to do with your obsession to rationalize gay sex. This is a conservative news forum, not a liberal gay activist forum.
To begin with, there was the fact that the sample was anything but random. It was very carefully selected to provide results that were as "normal" as possible. The subjects were informed of the purpose of the study, again to provide results that were as "normal" as possible. And the response of madg is, "So what?"
Then, despite the fact that the subjects knew that they should be on their best, most "normal" behavior, they read homosexual images into the TAT and MAPS tests. The heterosexual control group did not do anything like this, suggesting that the homosexual group was sexually obsessed. And the response of madg is, "So what?"
This will do to begin with, I think.
Kinsey was a scientist, Hooker was a scientist, and Landess is NOT a scientist. See the difference?
Kinsey and Hooker conducted research that was deeply flawed methodologically. Kinsey was not a trained mental health professional. And it doesn't take a scientist to see and report flaws in the scientific method. Anyone who paid attention in a freshman level biology course can do that. I can only presume that Landess paid attention in his freshman biology class.
Oh, it most certainly discredits him. Right from the start we KNOW that he’s propagandizing… something I went on to demonstrate anyway. What was NOT “discredited” was Evelyn Hooker’s study… certainly not by this literature professor working for the FRC.
Evelyn Hooker's study is discredited. As you are so fond of saying, she is a "notorious prevaricator" and a "disgraced researcher." She was biased in favor of a particular outcome and her selection of the sample, coupled with informing the subjects of the purpose of the study, clearly reveals that bias.
If you can find something wrong with the work published by Landess, then go ahead. But the simple fact that he worked for FRC does not discredit him.
(And what “extremely biased sources” have I used? Genuine scientists instead of Creative Writers?)
Gregory Herek is extremely biased. His bias drips from every pore at his UC Davis website. The Queer Resources Directory and other gay rights websites are also extremely biased.
There are very, very few “eureka” moments. Mostly, it’s a steady building of data that eventually leads to inescapable conclusions and consensus… such as the fact that homosexuality is NOT a pathology. How long it took them to reach that conclusion is irrelevent.
Timing is everything. Sixteen years after Hooker published her deeply flawed study, the APA treated it like newly-discovered gospel. This happened during and after the APA convention in San Francisco in 1973, when gay rights activists by the hundreds stormed the convention, threw chairs, stormed the stage and grabbed microphones, tore down posters, assaulted convention delegates, and in general made the convention one ugly incident after another.
This is fully documented in Bayer's Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis, which I've cited repeatedly. Like Bell & Weinberg, Bayer clearly and unequivocally states his sympathy with the gay rights movement in the foreword of his book. Like Bell & Weinberg, Bayer then rips the guts out of the gay rights activists' arguments with the facts in the text of his book.
Prior to the convention, gay rights activists asked a prominent psychiatrist for a statement of support. He wrote them back, politely declining. The gay rights activists then used his polite letter to print up his stationery, type the desired statement of support on it, forge his signature, and mail it out to every name on the APA mailing list that the gay rights activists had purchased. So in addition to the techniques of extortion, deception was used to gain support from APA members.
Under those circumstances, the APA was like a man who signed a contract with a gun held to his head.
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