Talk:Alfred Kinsey

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“He used faulty statistical sampling methods to baffle the unsophisticated.”

The following is a source by source explanation for my removal of the sentence ““He used faulty statistical sampling methods to baffle the unsophisticated.” from this article.

I removed the source “Felicity Barringer, "Sex Survey of American Men Finds 1% Are Gay," The New York Times, April 15, 1993, p. A- 1.” because the source did not say anything about “He [Kinsey] used faulty statistical sampling methods to baffle the unsophisticated.” It did say the numbers were lower than those reported by Kinsey, but not that his methods were in any way flawed. Did not support the claim it claimed to support, so removed.

I removed the source “Boyce Rensberger, "How Many Men in U.S. Are Gay?," The Washington Post, April 17, 1993, p. A-1.” because the source contradicts the first sentence of the article (it says that Kinsey estimated the percentage at 4%), and because source does not claim that he “used faulty statistical sampling methods to baffle the unsophisticated.” – it does say “Kinsey's numbers were not based on a statistically valid sample.” But that is a much weaker claim than the article here makes. Additionally, the full title of the article should be given, it is “How Many Men in U.S. Are Gay? Estimates Vary By Millions” not “How Many Men in U.S. Are Gay?”

I removed the source “Barbara Vobejda, "Survey Finds Most Adults Sexually Staid," Washington Post, October 7, 1994, p. A-1.” because it like the previous source does not accuse Kinsey of trying to baffle the unsophisticated, it simply says, “While studies of Americans' sexual practices date back to the work of Alfred Kinsey in the 1940s, much research in the field has focused on fertility, teenage sex or behavior related to AIDS. Many of the studies, including Kinsey's, were not based on a representative sample of the population.” (Very week criticism, if criticism at al,l compared to what the article claims.) Additionally the full title is “Survey Finds Most Adults Sexually Staid; Americans' Average Is Once Per Week”.

I removed the source “Judith A. Reisman, Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences the Red Queen and the Grand Scheme” because it does not contain the accusation that Kinsey intended to “baffle the unsophisticated” with his statistics—it does not support the claim it is used to support. Additionally Dr. Reisman has a degree in Communications, not statistics, biology, human behavior, or any relevant field and so is not really an appropriate source for this article at all. (She is also the major proponent of “erototoxins” a theory that has no science to support it—not even any she has produced—which pushes her views so far to the fringe that even if her background were in a relevant field—which, I repeat, it isn’t—she shouldn’t be used as a source here).

I removed the source “Tom W. Smith, "Adult Sexual Behavior in 1989: Number of Partners, Frequency of Intercourse and Risk of AIDS," Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 23, No. 3, May/June 1991, p. 104.” because it does not even mention Kinsey – it mentions his institute and a 1970 study conducted by it, but does not even touch on the issue of the statistics used in Kinsey’s major studies. It does not support the claim it allegedly supported, and so was removed.

I removed the source “Franklin D. Jones and Ronald J. Koshes, "Homosexuality and the Military," American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 152, No. 1, January 1995, pp. 16.” because it contains the 4% number not the 10% number, and because it does not criticize Kinsy’s statistical methods. It does not support the claim it allegedly supported, and so needed to be removed.

I removed the source “Stuart N. Seidman and Ronald O. Rieder, "A Review of Sexual Behavior in the United States," American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 151, March 1994, p. 339.” because it notes that the Kinsey studies had “severe methodological limitations” but not the stronger claim that “He [Kinsey] used faulty statistical sampling methods to baffle the unsophisticated.” This source goes on to use the Kinsey data to make some evaluations of behavior, while noting the limitations of the data.

None of the 7 sources listed to support the claim, “He [Kinsey] used faulty statistical sampling methods to baffle the unsophisticated,” in fact support that claim. Since after seven tries no good source to support the claim was provided I removed the claim all together as it will likely not be supported.--Reginod 14:52, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

I removed these again, sine the revert seemed targeted at the 10% number not this claim.--Reginod 16:06, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Is there a reason this edit was reverted again? I’ve explained in great detail why each and every single one of these sources does not support the claim it is being used to support and why it was removed. Is there a problem with any of my explanation or is there a quote from one of these sources I’m missing? If the revert could be explained I would greatly appreciate it. I’ve seen no objection to this edit (the only objection I’ve seen to any of my edits to this page is that “everyone knows” the 10% which this edit did not touch—see below for why I made that edit), could the problem with it be explained?--Reginod 16:27, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

I’ve seen a lot of discussion on this page by the reverting sysop, but only about the other edit I made that was reverted, nothing about this edit. I assume that this means that this edit was inadvertently reverted and if I see no objections I will make it again shortly.--Reginod 09:47, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

Ok, seeing no objection. I will remove this material again.--Reginod 16:08, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

I see that my edit has been reverted and the page is now locked because of an “Edit war”. I’ve still seen no reason why this edit is not ok, please explain.--Reginod 11:00, 12 May 2007 (EDT)

Reisman

For the reasons stated above, I would advocate removing Reisman (and especially the reference here [1] )from this article. I also want to add a few additional reasons here. First, she is not the first person to point out the statistical flaws with Kinsey’s methodology—so she can hardly be said to have “debunked” him. Second, Kinsey’s data, when the limitations of it are recognized, is still valuable and used in scientific papers – one of the sources above used it. Third, her quote stops short of the conclusion it seems to be used to support, in context she goes on to say:

Under scrutiny is the role of Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey and his contention that Americans are 10% to 47%, more or less, homosexual. Kinsey's percentage was seized upon by Harry Hay, the father of the homosexual "civil rights" movement, when Hay formed the Mattachine Society, urging that homosexuality be seen no longer as an act of sodomy but as a 10% minority class. Today, scores of homosexual activists cite Kinsey as the man who made the homosexual movement possible.[3]

But what if all of Kinsey's work was fraudulent, or worse? What if it reflects unethical scientists conducting unprosecuted criminal acts? For example, is it possible that scientists have conducted sexual experiments on children? Or that they could allow or encourage child abusers to conduct such experiments? The possibility that this actually occurred-and indeed that the claimed results of such experiments have played a critical and sustained role in our law and public policy-has led Congress to submit legislation which calls for an examination of the relevant facts. The legislation focuses on the research and publications of Dr. Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues ("The Kinsey Institute") conducted at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. The legislation is known as H.R. 2749, "The Child Protection and Ethics in Education Act.”

Fourth, she questions his results on homosexuality because:

However, without question, any "scientists" who reprint and encourage production of data on child sexuality which have been taken from child sex offenders engaged in "manual or oral" sex with babies and children, are not scientists but propagandists-indeed guilty of admitted criminal sexual conduct, by the descriptions in their publications, whether the sexual offender(s) were identified and prosecuted or not. To trust anything these men or their disciples produce is to put one's faith in those who use the language of science to accomplish personal, criminal, and/or sexual interests. Hence, whatever Kinsey's claims of homosexual percentages and normality were, these become, pragmatically, as invalid as his child sexuality data.

That is, she finds some of his subject area distasteful and therefore we should reject all his data. This is (at best) a moral critique of the study of sex research, it is far from a scientific critique. Fifth, her “evidence” of criminal wrongdoing on the part of Kinsey and his associates is minimal at best—I see lots of hand waving and hysteria, but no actual evidence—and even if Kinsey were guilty of encouraging the sexual abuse of children (a fact I highly doubt, but am open to the possibility of being wrong on) that doesn’t invalidate his other numbers.

I would suggest immediate removal of this section from the article for all of these reasons.--Reginod 15:19, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

I’m seeing no objections to removing this information. I plan to act on it in the next day or so if I see none.--Reginod 14:39, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

Unreliable source?

The referenced article 'The re-whitewashing of pedophile Alfred Kinsey' seems to be quite suspect. Its published by Renew America, who have political disputes with Kinsey's work, and seems to be concerned mainly not with criticisms of his research but a combination of personal accusations and claims that Kinsey was and still is destroying society. Look at some of these:

This collection comprised nudist magazines that contained pictures and drawings of nude men and boys, and Kinsey would show them to his young male charges in his tent — alone — late at night.

Source, perhaps? No? Was Kinsey ever charged with any type of sex crime? Nope. Are there any witnesses or accounts of these late-night showings? Nope.

Kinsey is without a doubt one of the most vile, destructive and perverted individuals I have ever had the displeasure of studying.

Could it be that the writer is just the tiniest bit biased against Kinsey?

A lot of the claims made are also dubious. The entire section on Dr. Fritz Von Balluseck, for example - the Nazi Pedophile who the article claims Kinsey protected and encouraged. If you do a bit of research on that, just a little googling, it seems that this claim was pulled out of the blue by a British TV program called 'Kinsey's Pedophiles' - which based its claims on 'newspaper findings' without nameing any specific newspaper. A claim which it appears to have in turn pulled from the claims of one Dr. Judith Reisman - who the author of the re-whitewashing article seems to hold in high estem.

This Reisman is also reaponsible for many of the other claims repeated - most, if not all. Yet her own credability is pathetic. She appears to be on an anti-Kinsey crusade, publishing a series of books and a website attacking him, and making numerous claims which I can see at a glance to be nonsense. For example, the Kinsey's 'research' alleged that 10% of American males were homosexual line, which is actually just a misreading of his definition (The research actually claimed that 10% of males had homosexual tendencies, which could include bisexuality, or even heterosexuals who had recurring homosexual thoughts or fantasies even if not acted upon). And she makes some very dubious claims - once stateing that watching pornography caused the formation of toxic chemicals in the brain.

The re-whitewashing writer seems to have a bit of a nazi obcession, comparing Kinsey to them no less than five times. Including one time where he argues that Kinsey must be like the Nazis because they both supported eugenics - well, eugenics was hugely popular at that time, quite a few US states passed eugenics laws and yet noone calls those representatives Nazis. It was in fashion.

I just dont think we should refer to this collection of unfounded accusations and lies, written by a peddler of unfounded accusations and lies, in turn repeated by the creator of unfounded accusations and lies and without a spec of credability at any chain. I advise that it be removed, and never refered to here again, in the name of retaining what little credability Conservapedia has.

I have not seen such an appallingly bad source used on Conservapedia since the article that claimed the Nazi Party encouraged homosexuality.

 Suricou, the annoyed raven.

10% or 4%

Two of the references use on the original version of this page show that Kinsey claimed that 4% not 10% of the American public was homosexual—no references have been provided supporting the 10% claim—I think that if my addition is going to be reverted, at least some sources should be provided. The articles make a point of saying the Kinsey was misunderstood to be claiming the 10% number, so a reference to “everybody knows” Kinsey said it is not sufficient here.--Reginod 16:04, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

It's common knowledge. RobS 16:06, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

The sources point out that common knowledge is wrong.

And I didn’t change the 10% number so the revert you just did put back the bad sources discussed above not here.--Reginod 16:09, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Waht we need is the GAO report from here. [2] RobS 16:37, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

This link says nothing about the 10% number. It says that Congress considered a bill to have the GAO look into whether or not Kinsey did anything wrong—that has nothing to do with what number he reported.--Reginod 16:39, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

If you look here [3], you will see that the bill was never voted on (it went to a subcommittee where the Republican controlled House let it die) so no GAO report was ever made.--Reginod 16:42, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

The report was ordered because the 10% made is way into federally funded school texts for 30 odd years. RobS 16:45, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

First, the report was never ordered—see the link I provided. Second, the report was considered because of the child sexuality information not the homosexuality information—see section 2 of the bill. Third, the number is not in the link you provided.--Reginod 16:47, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

No one said the number was in the link. RobS 17:00, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Ok. Then how is it relevant? It is not about homosexuality at all, it doesn’t talk about homosexuality, and the bill was never passed—so no report was ever made. How is this at all relevant to the subject under debate here (whether Kinsey claimed that 10% of American men were homosexual or whether he claimed 4% were).?

Also, Please do not forget to address my points numbered 1 and 2 above.--Reginod 17:05, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

(<--) There is no debate. Kinsey made the claim. RobS 17:07, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

I provided two sources that clearly say he did not make the claim, but that people commonly misunderstand him to have made the claim. (They were “Boyce Rensberger, "How Many Men in U.S. Are Gay?, Estimates Vary By Millions" The Washington Post, April 17, 1993, p. A-1.” and “Franklin D. Jones and Ronald J. Koshes, "Homosexuality and the Military," American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 152, No. 1, January 1995, pp. 16.”) You have asserted that “It’s common knowledge.” I have explained that the common knowledge is false and provided two reputable sources to back this up. You have responded by linking to a bill that was never passed suggesting that Kinsey be investigated for sexually abusing children (a bit of a non sequitur, apparently since you have stopped talking about it). You have not suggested that my sources are unreliable, you have not suggested that you have a more reliable source, you have not provided any source (let alone a reliable one) supporting the 10% you have repeated that everyone knows it to be true—despite the fact that I have explained why common knowledge is not to be trusted in this case. The 10% is a misrepresentation of Kinsey’s work.--Reginod 17:15, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Not supported by the evidence. RobS 17:24, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

What evidence? You have provided no evidence for me to look at. Simply asserting a thing to be true, especially when the evidence I have provided says that what most people believe is false, is not evidence.--Reginod 17:28, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

The discussion has moved on to User:Conservative/socialeffectevolution. RobS 17:53, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

There is no need to move the discussion—especially to the page of a user rather than to the appropriate article (I’ve not been invited to post on that user’s page, and will not violate the rule that a user’s page is his castle to pursue this discussion with you)—or to a page that is tangentially related at best—we are discussing what number Kinsey gave on a page about Kinsey, we are not discussing anything about Darwin and so I think talking about this on a page about the impact on society of Darwin’s theory is inappropriate. I will therefore respond here, as this is the relevant location.

Most of the “evidence” posted on the page you linked to comes from Dr. Reisman, who for all the reasons I listed above is not a reliable source—and I still see no reason to trust her. The other “evidence” you post pertains to the bill we have discussed at length here—which for all the reasons discussed above is still not relevant to this discussion—the Eagle Forum piece on the bill reemphasizes that it deals with child sexuality not homosexuality—that is it is not. So the evidence offered is 1 untrustworthy source and the discussion of an bill never passed (or voted on) that deals with a separate issue. Compared to the two reliable sources (remember they were and are both used in the version of the article you have twice reverted back to) that I have provided for the 4% number—including 1 from a peer reviewed journal in a relevant field, psychiatry.

To attempt to forestall further misunderstanding let me quote the relevant sources.

From “Franklin D. Jones and Ronald J. Koshes, "Homosexuality and the Military," American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 152, No. 1, January 1995, pp. 16 (citing to Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.):

Kinsey et al. found that 4% of men are exclusively homosexual past adolescence.

There it is in plain English, from a peer reviewed article in a journal on psychiatry - Kinsey gave the 4% number.

From Boyce Rensberger, "How Many Men in U.S. Are Gay?, Estimates Vary By Millions" The Washington Post, April 17, 1993, p. A-1:

Although that figure is so much a part of conventional wisdom that a year-old San Francisco gay magazine is called Ten Percent, Kinsey never intended it as a measure of the proportion of homosexual men. The pioneering sexologist recognized that human sexuality encompasses a range of behaviors shading from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual.

Kinsey estimated that just 4 percent of men were purely homosexual (that extrapolates to 5 million men in the United States), but said the population could be as high as 10 percent (12.5 million) if men were included who had been "more or less exclusively homosexual" for at least three years out of a lifetime that was otherwise heterosexual.

There, from a reliable newspaper you have the 4% number given again and an explanation of where the 10% mythos comes from. Kinsey was interested not just in behavior over a life time, but in snapshots of behavior as well—the additional 6% comes from misunderstanding what Kinsey said. He said that 6% of the people he surveyed went through, what we might now call, a homosexual phase, they were not homosexual, they engaged in heterosexual behavior for most of their lives, but they experienced a prolonged period of exclusively homosexual behavior at some point in time. In modern parlance we would call these people bisexual.

So you can see the reliable sources on this, and how the 10% figure came to be the dominant one in the popular imagination.--Reginod 22:45, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Additions

Perhaps some information on when Kinsey was born and died and what he did for a living would be appropriate as well. A brief discussion of his overall work might be beneficial. Learn together 20:12, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

His overall work was to justify and legitimize sexual perversion. He was a homosexual sadomasochist. I don't think any part of his 'overall work' has been beneficial. --Ed Poor ^Talk 20:44, 22 June 2007 (EDT)

I have not seen anything to point towards homosexuality, and he was married to Clara McMillen and they had four children. If you could show me a document that proves he was homosexual I would appriciate it. --Be not dismayed

You didn't follow the CWA link I supplied? Maybe you we need to make it more prominent - once you find it - so that other readers can find it too. Would you do that for me, please? --Ed Poor ^Talk 20:57, 22 June 2007 (EDT) --Ed Poor ^Talk 20:58, 22 June 2007 (EDT)

Here's the source the CWA used- James H. Jones, Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life (New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company,1997), pp. 81-85 and 603-604., though it would be factual if you mentioned that he was married and had 4 children [4]

Dates

Since this is protected, could someone please dewikilink the dates? Thanks. JazzMan 23:48, 30 August 2007 (EDT)

More Info

I like this article as it is, but I think it would also help to have some more info on the historical person. For example, he wrote/edited "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" which was a huge seller. He taught at a University, was married, those sorts of biographical details that make the article flow a little better. It is locked so I can't edit any of this. Thanks! ItMathers 18:40, 20 October 2007 (EDT)

It was locked by RobSmith, so I suggest that you leave him a message on his talk page asking him to unlock it for you. Philip J. Rayment 22:34, 21 October 2007 (EDT)

Could somebody de-link the dates and years?

What the headline says. Article is locked, so I can't do it myself. --DHayes 23:39, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Default Sort needs to be added

Sysops, could one of you please add the following line:

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kinsey, Alfred}}

Having the categories sort by first name looks unprofessional. Cathy 20:07, 30 June 2008 (EDT)

Quote

In Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life, biographer James H. Jones revealed Kinsey's exceeding appetite for sadistic varieties of homosexual sex, voyeurism and other perversions, and how they inspired his social agenda:

"The man I came to know bore no resemblance to the canonical Kinsey. Anything but disinterested, he approached his work with missionary fervor. Kinsey loathed Victorian morality. He was determined to use science to strip human sexuality of its guilt and repression. He wanted to undermine traditional morality, to soften the rules of restraint. Kinsey was a crypto-reformer who spent his every waking hour attempting to change the sexual mores and sex offender laws of the United States." (p. xii)Daniel1212 09:03, 27 June 2009 (EDT)

Generally articles make statements rather than ask questions, at least that's what I thought

Hello. These two sentences, "Why did Alfred Kinsey, the father of sex research, seek out convicted sex offenders and represent their behavior as that of typical American males? Why did he say that adult-child sex was “harmless”?" in my opinion would work out better as statements than questions. So we would state, "Alfred Kinsey sought out convicted sex offenders and represented their behavior as that of typical American males. He thought child sexual molesting was harmless." I also think "adult-child sex" is to neutral and it should just be labeled "child molesting". Anyway, the main reason I think it should be changed is I think an encyclopedia should more so be making statements than asking questions. We can still make clear what he was doing by wrong by stating that it was wrong, it does not need to be phrased as a question. Burke39 20:41, 11 May 2015 (EDT)