Current BSA Policy Vs local option poll

[AZMike]

Could you cite those for me' date=' Rick? In which academic journals did they appear?[/quote']

 

I don't remember. It was back in college, and that was years ago. I do remember being unimpressed with the quality of the two that I did read at that time.

 

The point I was (trying) to make was: just because you can find an academic study or studies that appear to support a point of view, doesn't mean that they are good studies, or that their conclusions are being correctly interpreted.

 

As for addressing your quote, it was probably miss-placed. I agree with you that teen and pre-teen boys shouldn't always be given a final say on safety issues. We I was trying to address, was the implied point that having gays in the BSA was a SAFETY issue. And to support that claim, some people cite a few bogus studies. Hence the jibe about academic studies.

 

As for the studies themselves, like I said, I don't even remember their titles. However, after a quick Google search, I was able to find references to several more recent ones that appear to address the issues of religious fundamentalism, abuse and violence in the "Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion". I haven't read any of them (and don't plan too - this is not an area of interest to me), so I can't comment on their relevance or quality.

I would agree with you that those studies don't sound very impressive, Rick, and that just because an academic study or studies appear to support a particular POV, that we should place our faith in them because they are "science" or "S*C*I*E*N*C*E!" We can consider the data and studies and decide if they are useful, but scientists are as prone to political pressure, shoddy work skills, and bias as any other worker. The conclusions of the youth safety experts should be considered in this perspective. As the Regnerus study demonstrated, a sociologist making a research conclusion that criticizes homosexual behavior can't expect it to help his or her career, whether the study and research were valid or not.

 

You may have read the New York Times article recently about the sociologist who falsified at least two of his studies:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp&. The website Retraction Watch tracks research studies where the studies were withdrawn from academic journals because of falsehood, errors, and shoddy workmanship. There's one or two every day, which make for interesting reading if you're involved in the sciences. http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/

 

We should be guided by data, but make our decisions based on common sense and prudence.