May 9th, 2006
Decoding Cameron’s Radio Soundbites
Paul Cameron was a guest on the Thom Hartmann Radio Show yesterday.
Here’s the link to the archived show. (The interview is almost immediately at the beginning of the archive.)
Here is an excerpt of Cameron explaining his findings on the show. I’ll insert my comments to demonstrate how deceptively he presents his information:
This study is the largest sample.
His “sample” consists of people he never met and never interviewed. It’s not like he was in contact with any of these people. Ever.
Seventy-seven adults — not kiddies — these are adults who are being interviewed because they have a homosexual parent. And in this particular instance they were chosen by pro-homosexual investigators.
“Pro-homosexual investigators” = Non-homophobic books authors
Three of them. Three different studies.
“Studies” = BOOKS
He is careful to not mention which studies, er, books he used, which were Life Curves, Out of the Ordinary, and my book, Families Like Mine.
And they were trying to show that really, it’s pretty good to be — kinda fun — to be the child of a homosexual.
“Kinda fun”= Nothing to be ashamed of.
But if you looked at and assembled all the data that they published, it turns out for most of them you could tell what kind of sexual activies and preferences they had.
The “data” in the case of Out of The Ordinary were essays contributed by adults with GLT parents. Anthologies have never been statistically representative. Notice how he again avoids the word “books” to mislead listeners into thinking the “investigators” of this “data” are “reporting” on a “sample.” (Or, in honest English, “authors” of “books” who are “writing” about “people.”)
And it turns out, 30% of them, were, at the time of interview engaged in or interested in homosexuality; 32% in heterosexuality, and the others, well, we just don’t know. They didn’t report.
What accounts for nearly one-third of the sample that “didn’t report?” In my book — which accounts for 50 of his sample of 77 — they “didn’t report” their sexual orientation because their sexual orientation was not the focus of my research. So how can someone else turn around and make it the focus of his research, using my incomplete data as for the majority of his data?
This is the tip of the iceberg for the interviews Cameron is doing and wants to do. He is currently being shopped around to radio shows to talk about his “study.” To prove it, the link is here. Book him without challenge if your show wants to kill its cred.
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Abigail, I have just discovered your website and am so impressed. I have heard about this Cameron “study” and have heard a lot of the arguments against his “research” but I had never heard about his three book source material and that you, author of one of the books, had refuted his claims. How powerful!
I’m curious, and you may have addressed this question somewhere on your site (I haven’t fully perused it yet), have you contacted Cambridge and informed them of these facts? I am shocked that a scientific publication from an extremely highly regarded institution would have published such drivel. I would think that, presented with the facts that you have laid out, they would consider rebutting or even rescinding the published report.
I understand that many have contacted the scientific journal and have gotten answers that research would be done and responses would be made, only to have never heard back from them. It seems that they would be extremely embarrassed to have been swindled by this charlatan and might be too ashamed to print a retraction.
What are your thoughts on this and what has been your contact with and response from the journal publishers?
I sent a detailed email to the Associate Editor back in February, but did not receive a response. (The editor did not have an email listed.) The post in which I included exactly what I sent the journal is here.
What in the hell was Paul Cameron thinking when he messed with the very knowledgeable and straight woman Abigail????? Go get him baby. Sadly, along with the other (approx) 599 books I lost in Katrina, yours was too. It’s will be years before I can replace them all.
[...] Today, author Abigail Garner wrote a post on her blog concerning a radio interview Cameron did yesterday. Here is her post: Paul Cameron was a guest on the Thom Hartmann Radio Show yesterday. [...]
I’m so glad that you’re still persuing this fraudster - he needs to be drummed out of the scientific community, this sort of behaviour is just not acceptable.
[...] Abigail Garner, the author of Families Like Mine, one of the three books Dr. Cameron bought from Amazon.com, caught his act on Air America and did an excellent fisking of that interview. And throughout that interview, the good names of the Journal of Biosocial Science and Cambridge University Press were repeated, loudly and clearly. [...]