Tuesday, November 19, 2013

REgnerus fallout

Do you remember the Regnerus study, in which a sociologist purported to show that children of gay parents do worse?  Problem is, his definition of "children with gay parents" REALLY was "children whose parents broke up and one MIGHT have been gay."  He didn't compare kids from stable straight families, to kids from stable gay families.  And as any scientist knows, you really have to control for all those variables if you want to draw a conclusion.

An investigation by the journal that published the data found that it was unjustifiable,  while the author was in a rather--shall we say, ethically shaky relationship with the far-right group that funded the study.  The peer review was anything but objective.  The primary scholarly group in this field has roundly criticized the study as not worth the paper it is printed on.  Since then, Regnerus has been on the "circuit" arguing that Teh Gayz make terrible parents.  (You can read our coverage here).

Trying to get at how an article with such dubious merits got published, a reporter has filed for documents from the University of Central Florida, where the editor is.  UCF is vigorously trying NOT to reveal the documents.  Hmmmm, wonder why?

More at The Regnerus Fallout site.

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