UT Finds No Scientific Misconduct on Study of Children of Gay Parents
After conducting a required inquiry into the methodology of a controversial study on the children of gay parents, UT has found no formal investigation is warranted.
UT sociologist Mark Regnerus had taken up the question of how different the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships are. He concluded that they are “very different,” finding that adult children of a mother who had reported at least one same-sex relationship tended to fare worse on certain life outcomes.
The study did not examine causality—whether those children tended to fare worse because of those relationships or due to other factors. But in part because it took on a politically charged topic, it caused a media firestorm nonetheless.
After a writer and blogger raised a complaint about the study, the University conducted an inquiry to determine whether the accusations made had merit. Following procedures, the Office of the Vice President for Research met with a four-member faculty advisory panel.
The panel’s conclusion: that there was insufficient evidence to warrant an investigation. It noted, however, that that does not mean the study wasn’t “even perhaps seriously flawed.” Rather, it indiciates that there was no evidence of unethical practices like falsification.
Provost Steven Leslie accepted the report this week, closing the matter from UT’s perspective. Beyond UT and this study, however, the scholarly exploration of the issue will no doubt go on.
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3 Comments
This completely leaves out that the editor of the publication that published Regnerus has come out and called the study “bull shit” and said that it should never have been published. The University (my alma mater) can say what it wants, but this is a FLAWED study. This is NOT science. I took this man’s SOC301 class, I learned FLAWED SCIENCE. He seeks to prove his (politically motivated) hypothesis rather than seeking to DISPROVE like he should be. Source: http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/controversial-gay-parenting-study-is-severely-flawed-journals-audit-finds/30255
From the link in the comment above:
Wright points out (as Regnerus himself wrote) that the paper could be read as supportive of gay marriage because it seems to indicate that more-stable households produce less-troubled children. “This does not sound like spiteful gay-bashing to me,” Wright contends in his response. “It sounds like a perfectly reasonable conclusion.”
The study may be flawed, but that doesn’t mean that the author/reviewers were engaged in some sort of homophobic conspiracy. The tin foil hat crowd can disperse now, and if they have the time, they can conduct their own study.
So. UT finds no evidence that Regnerus intentionally threw the study. If that’s the case, why in the world is such a poor professor with no integrity or respect for scientific research employed at our university?
“In reality, only two respondents lived with a lesbian couple for their entire childhoods, and most did not live with lesbian or gay parents for long periods, if at all.”
How does that even get published? If a sixth grader tried to supply that as “research” for their conclusion, they would’ve gotten an F. What a disgrace.