nytimes reporting
I know that policing the liberal-ish paper of record may seem nit-picky, but I've been extremely annoyed with their reporting on gender studies and LGBTQI issues and they ARE supposed to be accurate. I believe I'm not the only one in this community that has been tracking and emailing the nytimes over poor science (due diligence) and failure to adequately respect those without privilege. So I thought I'd mention another article published today that's doesn't seem very balanced all. The article is reporting on the vatican's decision to go gay-hunting and implicitly supports a correlation between homosexuality and molestation by weakly representing the facts. Or at least that's what I felt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/national/15seminary.html?ex=1127448000&en=56d9cc37b3f6fc86&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Though admittedly I didn't do any serious checking (feel free to counter), my comment on the article is behind the
I realize that you are limited in doing research for daily articles, but the article "Vatican to Check U.S. Seminaries on Gay Presence" reads like a press release and inadequately states the expert view of a correlation between homosexuality and attraction to children.
"Experts in human sexuality have cautioned that homosexuality and attraction to children are different, and that a disproportionate percentage of boys may have been abused because priests were more likely to have access to male targets - like altar boys or junior seminarians - than to girls. "
The above quote does not appear to reflect the state of the majority of current scholarship or experts. The majority of experts and research state that there is no scientific basis for believing that homosexual men are more likely to molest children. That is a much stronger and more accurate statement than simply "experts" "cautioning" "difference." While there are somewhat understandable resource issues with your ability to do due diligence on LGBT science reporting, this article should have and could have been caught with a simple google or academic search.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/national/15seminary.html?ex=1127448000&en=56d9cc37b3f6fc86&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Though admittedly I didn't do any serious checking (feel free to counter), my comment on the article is behind the
I realize that you are limited in doing research for daily articles, but the article "Vatican to Check U.S. Seminaries on Gay Presence" reads like a press release and inadequately states the expert view of a correlation between homosexuality and attraction to children.
"Experts in human sexuality have cautioned that homosexuality and attraction to children are different, and that a disproportionate percentage of boys may have been abused because priests were more likely to have access to male targets - like altar boys or junior seminarians - than to girls. "
The above quote does not appear to reflect the state of the majority of current scholarship or experts. The majority of experts and research state that there is no scientific basis for believing that homosexual men are more likely to molest children. That is a much stronger and more accurate statement than simply "experts" "cautioning" "difference." While there are somewhat understandable resource issues with your ability to do due diligence on LGBT science reporting, this article should have and could have been caught with a simple google or academic search.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html