Alfred Kinsey

Hero or heathen?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey
Please discuss, and feel free to throw in political rhetoric!

Here's a start, he's a pedophile. Or at least an enabler.

He was played by Liam Neeson in the biopic about him. Ergo he's awesome.

Originally posted by tsscls
Here's a start, he's a pedophile. Or at least an enabler.

See, you can't do that. You can't submit vast amounts of information, such as a wikipedia page, (not to mention it's a wikipedia page) and then make a vague accusation. You set up the person reading the information to find proof in the information that you're either right or wrong in your claim. I see nothing in that information that proves he enabled that man to continue to moleste children.

People tend not to like him because he normalized sex by explaining how normal it was. He broke taboos down using science. I seriously doubt that any argument brought up here about his use of science is going to be revelation. He's been criticized and challenged, lied about and had his information manipulated incorrectly, since the '40s. I wouldn't be suprised if someone posts a link to some church website that claims he denied his research on his deathbed and was himself the pedophile in question.

Originally posted by skekUng
See, you can't do that. You can't submit vast amounts of information, such as a wikipedia page, (not to mention it's a wikipedia page) and then make a vague accusation. You set up the person reading the information to find proof in the information that you're either right or wrong in your claim. I see nothing in that information that proves he enabled that man to continue to moleste children.

...

👆

Originally posted by skekUng
See, you can't do that. You can't submit vast amounts of information, such as a wikipedia page, (not to mention it's a wikipedia page) and then make a vague accusation. You set up the person reading the information to find proof in the information that you're either right or wrong in your claim.

It's called trolling.

Making personal sexuality go from "Those thoughts are pure evil and you're going to hell!" to "Explore; Experiment; Enjoy"?

He's a f***ing damn hero.

well, we all know that studying something to understand it better and therefore have some ability to objectively deal with the problem is the same as supporting terrorism, so why would it be any different in the case of sexual criminals?

It seems to me like he could be a hero and a heathen...

He seems like a really ground breaking, amazing person to me.

Originally posted by inimalist
well, we all know that studying something to understand it better and therefore have some ability to objectively deal with the problem is the same as supporting terrorism, so why would it be any different in the case of sexual criminals?

Well in this case he said he interviewed 500 when he only spoke with one. Sort of skews ones results.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Well in this case he said he interviewed 500 when he only spoke with one. Sort of skews ones results.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Well in this case he said he interviewed 500 when he only spoke with one. Sort of skews ones results.

I understand why he said he interviewed 9, not 5: after a while, you become complacent in your knowledge. He probably had many more interviews than just that one fella, but not any in an official capacity. He probably had that one interview after soundly concluding his points and knew that it would be a waste of time.

Sure, it spits on the scientific method but I understand his need to get hasty: sometimes, you know what the results are going to be before doing the experiment, just from previous experiments/adventures.

That doesn't mean he was right, either.

Edit - I just read that he might have done it to protect the one individual he did interview speficially so he could collect data on it (assurance to the interviewee). Interesting.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Well in this case he said he interviewed 500 when he only spoke with one. Sort of skews ones results.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Assuming we're reading the same wiki, he said he interviewed nine not 500.

huh, had never heard about that

500 or 9, reporting a higher subject size (N) [in the case of 9, that is an 900% inflation] increases how probable the behaviour is. While it might have been done with the best intentions, that is kind of a crappy thing to do. Ethically, if they couldn't ensure the safety of the participant without sacrificing methodology, they shouldn't have run the study.

To be fair, I doubt there were hundreds of pedophiles lining up to be interviewed. Kinsey's guarantee of anonymity or no.

then do a case study, from a scientific point of view, he is pretty much lying

I can't say, learning about this, that I've lost a whole lot of respect for him, he was certainly blazing a path where there are essentially no other researchers, but that is a pretty dickish thing to do

You're right in the end, was just showing another side.

I've gotta imagine there is enough of a population in prisons... at least to learn some rudimentary things...

if only we could enlist prisoners for scientific testing against their will, or just totally give science the sex offender registry

I'd be fine with that, on the grounds that the test subjects (pedophiles) are euthanized after they've served their research purposes.

Originally posted by inimalist
huh, had never heard about that

500 or 9, reporting a higher subject size (N) [in the case of 9, that is an 900% inflation] increases how probable the behaviour is. While it might have been done with the best intentions, that is kind of a crappy thing to do. Ethically, if they couldn't ensure the safety of the participant without sacrificing methodology, they shouldn't have run the study.