2002: The debate goes on 

Rind

Bruce Rind published a new research report in November 2002:

Gay and Bisexual Adolescent Boys' Sexual Experiences With Men: An Empirical Examination of Psychological Correlates in a Nonclinical Sample'.

< http://www.imo.myweb.nl/library_two/rind/rind_gay_boys_frame.htm  >

For a view on the content, we may refer to the next pages of this Newsletter, which give some parts of the text for an impression.

 American Psychologist March 2002,

Volume 57, Number 3; Abstracts. 

This special issue gives articles about the debate on the meta-analysis, and especially the role pf the APA and the politics in it. So, it is a debate about a debate, thus, a meta-debate. That’s the level of the debate at the moment. As usual, a meta-debate is more thoughtful and quiet than a debate in the heat of its beginning. On the URL mentioned above, one can read the abstracts. I was still not able to order and read this issue.
One of the authors is Lilienfeld, whose article was refused by the APA.  

Dallam again

 Dallam, S. J. (2002). Science or Propaganda? An examination of Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman (1998). Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 9(3/4), 109-134.

(Simultaneously published as a chapter in Misinformation Concerning Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Survivors (Charles L. Whitfield, MD, FASAM; Joyanna Silberg, PhD; and Paul Jay Fink, MD, Eds.) Haworth Press, 2002)    

< http://www.ipce.info/library_3/files/dallam_02.htm >

 "The purpose of the present article is to examine whether Rind et al. (1998) is best characterized as unpopular science or pedophile propaganda." [...]
" [...]  the authors’ views on sex between adults and children have more in common with the ideology of advocates of “intergenerational” sexual relationships, than the reasoned opinions of most other scientists who have studied this issue." [...]

“After a careful examination of the evidence, it is concluded that Rind et al. can best be described as an advocacy article that inappropriately uses science in an attempt to legitimize its findings.”

 The ‘evidence’ is that Rind’s ideas resemble those of advocates of pedophilia, thus Rind et al. [only] propagate pedophilia [thus should not be token as serious science].

 Remarkably, Dallam refers to her article, Dallam et al., and to the article of Ondersma et al., both mentioned here above, but she even not mentions the reply of the Rind team to it, not in her article, nor in her list of references.
Cfr what is said here above: “They [Rind et al.] blame Dallam et al. for being very selectively in their quotes from literature. They quote if it matches their arguments, they do not quote the same or comparable sources if it does not mach.” Exactly this is what we see here. The reader should not know about this reply. It seems that we are back again in the first hot phase of the debate.

 Levine

Judith Levine, Harmful for Minors, The perils of protecting children from sex; Foreword by Dr Jocelyn M. Elders; University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/Londen, 2002, ISBN 0-8166-4006-8.

 Judith Levine seems to be the next target for the politically correct critics. I have her book here, so new that I can smell the ink, but even before the book was printed and could be read, a flood of articles, hate-mails and political action already has started, including claims to send her from her job. However, her university defended the academic freedom of investigating and publishing with fervour. One of the articles that describes this storm flood has as the title “Burn the book before it can be read”. These criticisms appeared to be free advertisements, because the book is sold out before it was printed.

You can read more about Levine’s book on the next pages of this Newsletter.

Speaking about facts & morality, Levine proposes a new morality in the area of sexuality and youth, based on a mass of facts.

 In this article, I have tried to give an overview of the debate on the Rind et al. publication in 1998 and earlier. It appeared that the debate was hot and that it had several phases. People began to attack without even reading the meta-analysis, and even politicians mixed the discourse about facts and the discourse about morals.  Gradually, the meta-analysis was seriously studied and the debate concentrated on the science and the facts. The science is still in debate, but some facts are acknowledged, and the author and their publications are taken as serious – except the most recent article of Dallam, who even not mentions Rind et al.’s reply.

 The debate will go on, and we may hope in a reasonable and respectful way. The most logical sequence will be: discuss at first the science that gave the facts, then the facts themselves, and not until then the morality, which then will have a new base. But remember that a discourse about morals is another kind of discourse than a debate about facts.