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Monday, April 28, 2008
Hell…Guys do it all the time.
Roger Clemens carried on a decade-long affair with country star Mindy McCready, a romance that began when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer performing in a karaoke bar and Clemens was a 28-year-old Red Sox ace and married father of two, several sources have told the Daily News.
The revelations could torpedo claims of an unsullied character that are central to the defamation suit Clemens filed Jan. 6 against his former personal trainer Brian McNamee. Vivid details of the affair could surface in several media projects that McCready is involved with - including a documentary that begins filming today in Nashville, a new album and a reality show.
...Contacted by the Daily News Sunday through his lawyer Rusty Hardin, Clemens confirmed a long-term relationship but denied that it was of a sexual nature.
“He flatly denies having had any kind of an inappropriate relationship with her,” Hardin said. “He’s considered her a close family friend. ... He has never had a sexual relationship with her.”
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We focus more on male cheating because we live in a historically patriarchal society where men's sexuality is celebrated and women's is vilified. Where we get awesome poll results that make no sense like, "Men have more sexual partners than women" :)
People cheat because they are weak and/or insecure and don't value sexuality appropriately.
They also set themselves up for failure with unrealistically high standards and poor communication within their relationships.
Ultimately, cheating is an awful thing, and I never did both because I didn't want to hurt the person I was with and because I didn't want to ever be the kind of person who would.
A good strategy for not cheating with someone in a relationship--when I was single, I would just have them call their boyfriend and break up. Or I wouldn't do anything.
Also, this site is generally a sausage party.
That's only if you're doing it right.
Coincidentally, I don't consider any relationship intimate until tomatoes or tomato byproducts are involved.
Are you just as evil if you don't call it off then? or do you get some type of moral squatters rights, if you fall in love without the bad mens rea.
Something to confess, my son?
Once you find out they have a family, then you realize you too have been betrayed. I know how I would react in that instance. I'd leave, in love or not. The issue of trust would be a sticking point I don't think I'd want to risk.
And a dick measuring festival. You're in your glory, aren't you?
I don't see how that follows. I can see reading the evidence to say that, given two people with disparate incomes, they're better off married (and filing jointly). But you're saying something different.
Any ideas, chick? Sure. You're confused. That all rich men believe x, y, or z, is a position absurd on its face.
edit: imagine the brouhaha if I said something like, "why do all ______ women think x?
You misunderstand. I mean sexual action, not objectification. I thought that my example: Men being "found" by (crappy) scientific studies to have more partners than women, made that abundantly clear. Sorry.
Although to answer your question: No, not really.
Adverse possession!
Your male friends who tried to explain why guys cheat were IMO really just trying to rationalize it after the fact. If the best answer you can get is "it's what guys do" it's bull - whoever says it is hoping that's a good enough answer. Yeah, guys want sex, sure; but making a promise and keeping it is not "what guys do". Saying one's promises don't count because "she shoulda known I didn't mean it" is shifting blame on a failed marriage to the one who did the least to wreck it. I think a number of your friends meant their vows at the time, but don't want to admit that they screwed it up.
I think people* cheat because they find themselves (through their own fault or not) in tempting situations, and do not summon the will power to resist, partly influenced by thinking they won't get caught. Whether you're talking about cheating on a test, cheating on taxes, or cheating on your spouse, it's all pretty much the same. People start out with good (or no) intentions, then
FWIW, opportunities have presented themselves to me (without any effort on my part), and I've had no trouble turning them away each time. Having kids has nothing to do with it; I keep my promises. The fact that I love mrsidiom makes it easier, but even if it were difficult I'd still keep my word.
*I'm talking about most people. I'm sure there are some who actively seek to cheat, figuring the end justifies the means, or whatever. Offhand I don't think I personally know anyone who fits that description... but I've seen them portrayed on TV, so it must be true.
Speak for yourself, my friend. I celebrate women's sexuality at least five times a day. Every man to his own mecca, if you will.
There's something oxymoronic about this I can't quite put my finger on...
They save me for the Tyranosaurii.
Beat me to it. What I get for sitting at a coldass Cubs game for 4 hours.
I'm sure there's a great "adverse possession" quip to be made vis a vis R Clemens and his mistress, but I'm definitely too tired to make it.
anyhow, i never get in dick measuring contests because i'm guaranteed to lose
anyhow to catch up
Backlasher Posted: April 29, 2008 at 05:01 PM (#2762902)
Lassus--I guess it depends on the circumstances. Generally, I think it's the same. I think if you know someone isn't single, you shouldn't attempt to bed them, and it's bad if you do.
What if you bed them when you thought they were single, develop a relationship with them, then find out they have a family.
- then it is best to say good bye because he made of fool out of you AND her AND their kidz. and you know you dealing with a shtthead so time to cut your losses
Are you just as evil if you don't call it off then?
- evil, no. foolish, yes.
or do you get some type of moral squatters rights, if you fall in love without the bad mens rea.
- i don't know what a rea is, but falling in love with bad men - well, then you stuck with a bad man
. Answer Guy Posted: April 29, 2008 at 05:40 PM (#2762937)
Also, this site is generally a sausage party.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm sausage
villageidiom,
i appreciate your answer. thank you. i asked my grandaddy, not long before he died, why he never cheated on my grandmother (they hated each other, to put it mildly) and he looked at me and said - because it wasn't honorable. and actually, before i came here to this site and listened to all kinds of men talking about their relationships and wifes/gf, i really thought that men, regardless of $$$ almost never didn't cheat. i was REAL surprised.
Eraser-X is dominating this site! Posted: April 29, 2008 at 10:39 PM (#2763724)
Nice post, VI. You bring up an interesting point--why is our media so full of nasty characters? I do believe that affects people's values in this area...
- it IS a good question. you watch tv, you think white men are fat really STUPID slobs run by their skinny unbelieveably bytch wife and their unbelieveably RUDE kids. if the white men aren't fat and stupid, they dogs. i guess it is more "exciting" tv. bleccccch.
arkitekton Posted: April 30, 2008 at 12:33 AM (#2763854)
We focus more on male cheating because we live in a historically patriarchal society where men's sexuality is celebrated and women's is vilified.
Speak for yourself, my friend. I celebrate women's sexuality at least five times a day.
oh myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
so husband is reading over my shoulder and i ask him if he thinks that womens sexuality should be celebrated and he all YEAH baby YEAH
so goodnight boys
43 years old--just celebrated anniversary No. 20--still crazy in love with my wife.
It's because you didn't marry an Asian woman.
Let me get this straight Niepronte: you're saying that even though Clemens began his relationship with this Mindy chick when she was 15, he waited the 3 extra years to wait until she was 18 to have sex?
This is your defense, that "he waited 3 years for her to turn legal?"
Since I objected to what I saw as chick's bigotry, I have to object to this as well. Please don't tell me that you really think religious people have stronger morals than nonreligious people. Didn't the Inquisition, the jihad of your choice, the Quaker who bombed Cambodia, the latest parish scandal, teach you anything?
What disgusts me the most about infidelity is that it turns the other person's life into farce. If they wouldn't stay if they knew, by not telling them you deprive them of the chance of an honest relationship. And since (in many cases) the other person would leave, if they knew, how is it better than a kind of kidnapping, or false imprisonment?
and the best way to avoid massive threads about your infidelity is simply, don't get married.
then you can bang who ever you want.
Married chicks too.
And this is why when you ask a cheater, "Why did you cheat?", the answer is never satisfactory. It's always painfully obvious that the answer is a rationalization. Attack the rationalization with reason all you like, tear it down and show it to be false, there still won't be a satisfactory answer.
Surely we've all heard of the mice that will consistently choose a lever that will stimulate their pleasure center over even one connected to their food, to the point that they nearly starve? It's essentially like that. Cheating happens because the impending cheater feels a rush of pleasure when they're around the object of their affections. That rush of pleasure kills rational thought. It's why otherwise decent people cheat. It's why mankind has cheated through the centuries and will continue to cheat into the future. Really the question shouldn't be "Why do people cheat?", but rather "Why didn't this particular person cheat?"
Everyday of a womans life she is offered "Dick"
from about age 15 on, it is pretty persistent if she is another pretty face.
She goes to the grocery store, some guy offers her some dick
She goes to the car wash, some guy offers her some dick
She goes out to eat lunch, and the waiter offers her some dick
If she works out, she gets offered lots of dick.
If she works a job, she gets offered dick multiple times a day, usually by the same guys.
But if a guy is in the grocery store and some chic offers him ##### .... "Its his lucky day".
its all supply and demand.
women cheat because they give into the pressure, and, "this one has great ab's"
men cheat because the girl is willing.
And how the hell can you misspell my name that badly when it's listed right above every single post I make? Nieporent. It's really not that hard.
He might be afraid that if he types it correctly 3 times, he'll conjure something awful.
It's clear your focus is on the legal here. What about the moral? From the Durocher thread, I think I know where you stand on this situation, but, for the record, what's your feeling here?
And how the hell can you misspell my name that badly when it's listed right above every single post I make? Nieporent. It's really not that hard.
I thought the misspelling was cooler, because I turned your last name into something Hispanic-sounding.
Btw, my last name is Chiu, and people used to constantly misspell THAT, so yaddi yaddi yadda.
I think that 'he waited until she turned legal' is a pretty damn good defense to a charge that he didn't wait until she turned legal.
Here's the thing, wouldn't somebody who was willing to have a secret affair with a 15 year old be willing to violate a few age-of-consent rules as well? Just sayin', doens't look great for Roger.
Gesundheit!
Well, she's no longer "barely legal," so I think you're OK.
If you think that's credible, sure. I find it stretches the outer limits of plausibility, just because I don't see many 28-year old straight men forming platonic relationships with 15-year old girls. Maybe that's enough to keep him out of jail, or even keep the prosecutors' office at bay, but it's not enough to make me roll my eyes a bit. It's also a bit creepy.
I don't think anyone disputes that it's a "good defense," assuming it's true (but that, of course, is circular reasoning). What's being questioned is the credibility of that defense in this instance.
Arkitekton, my conservative friend, please tell me you're not this daft. First, studies (that Kevin, eminent scientist and military hero, dismisses) do show that religious people are less likely to cheat on their spouses. You assume this means religious people are more "moral" and then point to apparent contradictions of this (your) assumption. Aside from the odd choices you make as evidence of immoral religiosity, the assumption is false. Just b/c religious people are less likely to cheat on spouses doesn't make them more (or less) moral. It means only that they're less likely to cheat, for whatever reason. For instance, some non-religious people may not even think morality requires fidelity, right? Or, non-religious people may not make fidelity as significant a value as religious people do (say, for instance, understanding fidelity of that kind to be witness to the fidelity of God). Anyway, your assumption was false.
Surely you must think fidelity is at the very least either a component or a sign of morality rather than a mere symbol? Not that this is necessarily about how either you or I think. I'm not sure what good the word morality is if it does not somehow encompass keeping one's pledges.
As was noted earlier in the thread, they show that religious people are less likely to admit to cheating on their spouses. That's not necessarily the same thing.
No, that's not what they showed. It showed that religious people report not cheating more often than non-religious people. Your way of phrasing suggests they cheat and then don't report. As scotto pointed out, this is the nature of social scientific evidence: self-reporting. True, there is the possibility of false self-reporting, but as he pointed out further, self-reporting in these types of studies is generally accurate. Aside from that, that's the only evidence we can have of these things, and if someone asks "Who cheats more?" we can either talk out of our asses or look to the social science.
Sure, I do AG, and I consider it an objective quality of morality. But many people do not and when they do not (for whatever reason) they may also regard their pledges as nullifiable based on their sentiment. That's my point above.
Your query can't be answered w/o more information. Further, if this is to suggest, following Kevin's "analysis" that religious people don't admit cheating, you cannot, by Kevin's logic, have evidence of that.
Well, that's beside the point; the query assumes we know who's cheated or not, and who's admitted it. (And yes, I realize what I'm responding to is more a dig on kevin than anything else.)
And I'd say "all other things being equal" re. the "more information" bit, but I suppose the "morality" varies depending on a million factors (i.e., the fragility of one's spouse, the effect on other family members, if any, and so forth).
The next day, the News followed up by reporting that (1) she admitted that the facts in the first article were true, and (2) reporting that they did not have sex when they met, and that their relationship did not "become intimate" until sometime after she was 18.
In other words, there has been no allegation -- not even an anonymous one -- that he had sex with a 15 year old.
Nobody else (that I recall) has directly accused him of it, but others (see, e.g., Answer Guy in the post right before the one you responded to) have indeed questioned the credibility of the assertion that a 28-year-old guy struck up a platonic relationship with a 15-year-old girl without having it turn sexual for three years.
To not suggest it as a possibility would be extremely disingenuous. Self-reporting falls down all the time when shame gets involved. Look at the consistent gap between the polled voter preferences for African-American politicians and the actual voting results, for example.
Personally, I think we'd be better off admitting that we don't know and can't know to any degree of certainty, rather than pretending that we know and acting on what is, in all likelihood, flawed data.
It's not flawed data.
You have no way of knowing whether it's flawed or not. Which makes it flawed.
Just to add to this point, if a researcher worries about social acceptability as a source of bias, they work around it. Modules regarding sexual behavior may not be asked in a face to face interview. The sample person is handed a paper questionnaire or answers via computer with no interviewer mediation, eliminating that as a concern. If the questions are to be asked in person, the demographic characteristics of the interviewer are chosen carefully.
In any event, there's been a ton of methodological research done to reduce all sources of bias. Is it completely eliminated? No, because that's the nature of survey research and/or polling. Bias creeps in but the extent of the bias can be estimated and you can generate reliable estimates assuming you haven't completely screwed things up with a poor design or execution.
Now, if your operating assumption is that religious people are more likely to lie about sexual matters for whatever reason than non-religious people then there's really nothing to discuss. But I think to deny the validity of data found in the GSS or APS or NIS or any number of other surveys is to take a flat earth approach to understanding human behavior. I guess my main point is that there's no point to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. No research is perfect.
Peoples' mileage vary, of course.
As I said, estimates are as precise as they can be given the fact that you're dealing with a sample, and bias and error can creep in from various sources. That's why so much attention is paid to reducing bias by various means and then focusing on variance estimation.
But what we're talking about here is whether the range of those who engage in the practice of their religion have significant difference in infidelity compared with those who don't measured with, most likely, a 95% confidence interval. The answer, found fairly consistently, is yes, that in the population this is likely a real difference.
Edited to add the italicized text for clarity.
And after you learned that they had sex after she turned 18, would you suspect they had sex before she turned 18, as well?
I don't think it's that uncommon, or creepy. Where I do see things like this happening are when there's an shared activity in common, that both the 15-year-old and 28-year-old can participant as equals. The 13 year age difference is about right for "cool uncle" quasi-mentor relationship, there's something they can do together and enjoy other than [forget] -- and yes, most 28 year old guys aren't trolling for jailbait. Give us some credit (I'm 28). These days my main physical activity is rock climbing; among those folks, I see friendships among teenagers and 20/30 somethings all the day. Playing music is another. These cross-age activities are places where we get past the ridiculous mostly-American notion that you can only relate to and be understood by people your same age. That's a bunch of crap, actual communities are bigger than that.
Now, when the 15-year old and the 28-year old meet in a bar ... I agree that's a little creepy.
BBC--
I agree your solution is better than cheating, but you did not ask why cheating is the best solution. You asked why men cheat, and I was trying to provide some speculative insight. Cheating is usually (one might even say always) the wrong solution. Even so, trying to understand why people do it seems more productive to me than just calling it wrong and turning away.
Perhaps most guys that age aren't trolling for jailbait, but there are enough of them that I think we're rightly suspicious of the ones who seek out girls of that particular age, particularly if they meet in a bar, and doubly, doubly if they do end up shagging later.
And he's got the video to prove it.
But you're clearly in a fundamentalist camp on this issue, and don't seem to fully grasp that it's neither black nor white and that perfection, while desirable, is unattainable.
Sorry, didn't mean to stand in the way of baseless speculation. Carry on!
My dog claimed my leg was asking for it.
My vet claimed his nads were asking for it.
We lived happily ever after.
Best Regards
John
You're demonstrating a misunderstanding of what bias in a survey is. Per Groves, "(b)ias is the type of error that affects the statistic in all implementations of a survey design; in that sense it is a constant error (e.g. all possible surveys using the same design might overestimate the mean years of education per person in the population.) A variable error, measured by the variance of a statistic, arises because achieved values differ over the units (e.g. sampled persons, interviewers used, questions asked) that are the sources of the error. The concept of variable errors inherently requires the possibility of repeating the survey, with changes of units in the replications (e.g. different sample persons, different interviewers)."
W
With this statement, you have demonstrated such a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic being discussed simultaneously coupled with a lack of willingness to try to grasp what you so clearly don't understand that I'm concluding that I'm wasting my time. It's like arguing with a 9/11 conspiracy theorist or an ideologue.
But one last thing regarding "vested interests". The researcher in question and the data collector are independent of each other, have no association, and the data collector has no reason to sway the data one way or another. Your statement supports my conclusion that you don't know what you're talking about.
Wrong. Data have problems. Some more than others. The more problematic the data, the less reliable the conclusions -- or the weaker the conclusions that can be drawn at the same reliability (actually, I shouldn't be using reliability here, since it's a term of art with a precise definition, but you get the point). However, many studies have been done to benchmark the reliability (here used correctly) and accuracy of self-reported data against more objective measurements. All of the problems you cite -- and many others -- have been looked at in detail by methodological researchers. Social science data analysis explicitly includes sources of bias and measurement error in the modelling process. Well, for people who do good work anyway -- I can't comment on any particular studies but the rate of bad methodological practices in social science is pretty high.
But the important point is this: just because the data has problems doesn't mean it's worthless. There's plenty of gray area between perfect and worthless -- some might call this area "useful."
Well, maybe that's the problem. Professional statisticians are not trained interviewers.
And how was it discovered that a subgroup of the Haitian population was lying to the interviewers? Most likely, by doing social science research.
I rather doubt professional statisticians did the interviews on an epidemiological study. In any event, doing face to face interviews is probably the wrong way to collect sensitive data of this sort. That's when you use a paper questionnaire or computer to collect the data, so that the respondent has no incentive not to report accurately, which I've mentioned before and which you've ignored because it contradicts the fundamentalist position that you hold.
DCA, good posts at 402 and 406.
Again, wrong. Social science is not hard science as you understand it. If you're thinking like a hard scientist you're not understanding the data. You can't use the methodology in one to do the other. The appropriate comparison for social science stats are ecology and atmospheric science, where there's more noise than signal in the data and bias and uncertainty in measurement.
Again, most importantly, there's lots of space between perfect and worthless. All good social science data lies in this space. Some social science data *is* worthless. That you can't tell the difference doesn't mean that the rest of us can't.
I don't really see the relevance of the attitude of a father towards his daughter's possible sexuality, which isn't normally the type of situation in which we expect dispassionate, balanced thinking.
Remember, this is the same guy that didn't understand why you need to do tests on separate samples before one can conclude that a drug test is positive.
Maybe it isn't relevant. I was only asking to hear what I presume to be another human's pov would be.
I have a soon-to-be 10 year old in the house. Regarding her sexuality, I half kiddingly wish for her to be a lesbian. (She doesn't know this, and won't, until she's an adult and we can all laugh about it together.)
As a "hard" scientist who often veers into drawing conclusions about human beings on less than "hard" evidence, what would you conclude about the following person:
(1) Makes repeated false claims about his military service;
(2) Makes claims suggesting he has read a book he has not; and
(3) Makes definitive claims about fields he exhibits no competence in whatsoever.
Would you join me in drawing the conclusion that his opinions are unreliable?
Kevin: Since you've got no qualms about demeaning others' jobs and products, you tempt me to do the same about yours with a line a nuclear engineer once used when talking to me about chemists. I'll refrain, however.
The key phrase is legitimate, which implies an understanding of what's being discussed, which is not the case here from your end.
kevin, you know I'll defend you if I think people are being unreasonably dismissive. I can't do it in this case. Brian McNamee's testimony has excessive misinformation; and DMN's (and RDiP's, and others') point for several months is that on that basis we can't make any useful conclusions from it. Yet you have had no trouble doing so. This flies in the face of your claims on flawed data above.
That you might eventually be proven correct does not excuse the fact that you are willing to use flawed data with certainty when it suits you. I'm sure in your day job you have a higher standard than you've displayed here.
Ha! My wife brought up the Clemens-McCready thing last night, using the exact same wquote "how would *I* feel" And I replied precisely as DMN did - it won't stop at 18 or 30, but when I am dead.
It's incredibly valuable both because it has been conducted over such a long time (allowing social scientists to study trends) and because the data is made freely available to everyone, allowing anybody to use the data set.
I missed this. "Elitist?" I don't think so. Further, you may note that I specifically denied that this study means religious people are more virtuous. Add #5 to my list above: (5) Makes false assertions about what people claim that evince either (a) a willingness to distort other people's views or (b) serious deficiencies in reading comprehension.
Thank you for re-stating a point that I made earlier, and it is the second most used dataset for social science research after some US Census surveys for a very good reason.
This is what I meant about kevin not understanding what he's talking about, conflating data collection and survey design with the study, and so on and so forth.
I have the article if you want me to send you a copy. Here's what the article has to say about the issue you mention, in the discussion.
Moreover, research of this kind necessarily relies on self-reports of infidelity,
and some skepticism about the reliability of such data may be warranted.
However, despite some allegations to the contrary, studies have
turned up little clear association between religiosity (especially the kinds of
religious variables considered in this study) and the tendency to give biased,
socially desirable responses. At least one recent, thorough study of this issue
among young adults argues strongly against such a view (Regnerus & Smith,
2005). Nevertheless, it would be helpful for future studies to rule out obvious
sources of response bias in work on marital infidelity among adults.
The cited source is Regnerus, M. D., & Smith, C. S. (2005). Selection effects in studies of religious influence. Review of Religious Research, 47, 23-50. I have access to this as well but haven't looked at it at all.
Yes, you are. You are demeaning everyone who works in social science research, by classifying the type of data they use (and hence everything they do) as worthless. I said earlier that social science is not hard science -- as you understand the term "science," social science is not science. I used "hard science" to represent that distinction, but if that didn't get the message across: social science is not science. It's a fundamentally different type of inquiry and the methods are different, though they overlap quite a lot with the more messy scientific fields. "I'm a scientist" doesn't signify expertise in this area.
Unless she lurks on BTF.
Then again, having her lurk on BTF may well be the most effective means of scaring her away from men.
No kidding. :)
Although there are only two gay guys I know of on here. The other one doesn't scare me at all, except when he talks about 1986.
Yeah, I don't think the two gay guys (that I, too, know of) here are the ones Bivens would worry about his daughter hooking up with, whether or not sexual orientation's included in the equation.
I'm glad that social scientists try to correct for error, but without knowing things that they have no way of knowing, they can't get a truly accurate estimate of the magnitude of potential sources of error, either. If they actually knew, they wouldn't need to run the studies in the first place.
It's not just the cheatin' couples. In general, I don't believe in most sociological research, because I think that the approximations and assumptions that are inherent to the process make it useless for anything more than entertainment value. Such is life.
There are problems with sociological research, to be sure. The major one is that it's very difficult to control for everything -- indeed, it's very difficult to figure out what needs to be controlled for in any given case. And most studies that don't use the GSS or Census are working with data sets too small to allow for the extensive controlling which is necessary.
But that doesn't mean that all social science research is a waste of time. You can, if clever, work around many problems and find ways to corroborate your results. (Hell, you can get a New York Times reporter to collaborate with you on a bestselling book if you're clever enough about it.)
Of course they're unscientific. That's not a criticism. It would be like criticizing a woman for being unmale. Or a square for being unround. We already knew that, so what's the point?
Which is exactly my point. We don't have any way of knowing whether they are or not.
I have no problem with sociologists doing what they do, and I'm sure they do the best they can with what they've got. I just think that it's foolish to treat a lot of this stuff as being significantly stronger than a wild-ass guess.
Hah. Show me one study that suggests religious people are more faithful to their spouses than non-religious ones.
JC in DC cited such a study, at which point kevin summarily dismissed it because it was a social science study. Which is ridiculous, because even if you think the data used in the study is "flawed," at the very least this is a study that "suggests" religious people are more faithful to their spouses.
My question for kevin is, when you asked to be shown "a study that suggests religious people are more faithful to their spouses than non-religious ones," what kind of study were you expecting to see? What would you consider a satisfactory study? If nothing would satisfy you, why ask the question in the first place?
They may not be scientific in the strictest sense of the word, but opinion research does reflect what people think, and how different groups think differently about things. The vast majority of the surveys that are done, mostly funded by the government, are about non-controversial, non-sensitive topics. Are you going to lie about whether your kid has been vaccinated? I don't think so.
In addition, these same techniques are used by huge corporations to inform their business decisions, marketing strategies, and so forth, not to mention how campaigns use them to figure out how to win. If it were an epic failure, you'd figure they'd be doing something different.
That's not even wrong.
been there, done that ; ) , and mine i 4 and a half. i suspect you already understand her position on the matter, if you dare.
my boy, on the other, what a robust, able fella! you should see him kick a football (i mean soccer ball, of course)
jeez. roger, i hope you get whatever it is you deserve. you made your own bed (regardless of the occupants).
DMN, how would you feel about your 15 year old daughter hanging around with a 28 year old married man?
I don't have a 15 year old daughter, but if I did, I suspect I wouldn't want her ever having contact with any individual of the opposite sex over the age of about 12. Maybe 10, just to be safe. I think this attitude of mine would probably not change when she reached 18, but might cease at the point where I was dead of old age.
- grinning
EXACTLY what my daddy said. i mean thought. most all daddys get daddyitis over their Little Grrrls and dial he gonna be the worst EVAH bout LED
my brother he starting to seriously repeat my daddy's line about how God give men daughters to get even with them for what they did/tried to do to every other man's daughter...
I told Answer Dad "If having a lousy father is what turns a boy gay, then the ghettos in Baltimore would gayer than P-Town." It doesn't seem to register.
Some people probably do. My dad hates survey-takers, and lies to them about everything.
I had a nice exchange w/the author of the study Kevin so cavalierly and ignorantly dismissed. She mentioned the article DCA mentioned and pointed to a book as well ("The Social Organization of Sexuality") which treats survey methodology pertaining to sex.
Dave rightly points to the genesis of this particular occasion of the nudity of Kevin's ignorance. What we've learned is that Kevin wasn't asking for a study, but simply implying that social science is bunk through and through.
Which is like a nuclear engineer saying of chemistry that it's just morons playing with beakers, that chemistry is the science failed scientists get into: dismissive and insulting.
Social science, as currently practiced, requires too many leaps of faith to meet the same standards as hard science, and therefore should deservingly be treated as less reliable. Full stop.
Actually, it is pretty much the same thing.
No, it's not. If the Pirates signed me tomorrow, I could do my best to deliver quality left-handed relief pitching, but the mere fact that I did so wouldn't make me a quality left-handed reliever. I could make a good-faith effort to dig myself out of Attica with a spoon, but that wouldn't make me a master escapologist. Etc.
If you don't have the tools, you don't get the results, and right now the tools that the social sciences would need to deliver demonstrably accurate results just don't exist. Once we get brainwave scanners and throw away the rules about informed consent for experimental subjects, maybe it'll be different.
Regarding sexual orientation, my two cents is that I want my kids to be happy. The sooner they figure that out, the better.
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