Article falls prey to its own argument
I once heard someone say that the issue that someone will speak loudest about is the issue with which they themselves feel guilty. I have no idea how true it is, but it crossed my mind while reading this.
By that I mean not that the author has some sort of 'deviant' tendencies that he wishes to justify, but that he seems unable to hold sources he accepts to the same standard of those he does not. Which is a shame, because for the most part his argument is sound.
"Kinsey came in for serious academic criticism on the grounds of sample selection (volunteers who came forward for interview were mainly self-selected) and sample bias (a high proportion of prison inmates and prostitutes). This in turn led critics to argue that both Kinsey’s focus and findings were coloured by his own interest in masochistic and promiscuous sex."
"However, a subsequent re-working of Kinsey’s data suggested that the sample bias had little effect and that in general, people’s sex lives were more colourful and more varied than conventional moralists liked to imagine."
Seeing as these methodological problems are the ammo which Ozimek fires at the subsequently cited research on various topics, you'd expect a better handling of the Kinsey report issues than just waving a "someone said it was okay so it's okay" sign at people. Not only is the last phrase entirely meaningless, I'd love to know how such a conclusion was reached, but that would require the statement to be actually *referenced*).
If someone, somewhere was to say "I've gone over the Poppy report and it's methodological issues don't affect it much", would the author expect us to take *them* seriously?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
