Understanding Advocacy Science: Why the ‘Conversion Therapy’ ‘Science Briefing’ Fails to Set the Record Straight and Promotes Viewpoint Discrimination

Jul 5, 2017 by

from Core Issues Trust:

1. PREAMBLE

  1. The almost global opposition within the professional mental health bodies examining the efficacy of ‘Conversion Therapy’ reveals little ideological diversity of socio-political viewpoint. Taking on the multiple roles of witness, jury, judge and executioner, such ‘Advocacy Science’ fails to provide critical viewpoint analysis and to meet the basic tenets of the scientific method. As Haidt (2012:90)[2] argues,

each individual reasoner is really good at one thing: finding evidence to support the position he or she already holds, usually for intuitive reasons. This is why it’s so important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth (such as an intelligence agency or a community of scientists) or to produce good public policy (such as a legislature or advisor board).

The fact that researchers hold view-points that influence outcomes therefore needs to be acknowledged and owned. Inter- and cross view point research comparisons will yield more full analysis for policy making than when single view-point research is used.

  1. Funding and publication pathways are restricted and awarded only to those who promote LGBTI normalcy. This risks ‘Confirmation Bias’, by which researchers value results more highly when they match their own moral and political belief systems, and disregard those which don’t. The ‘Science Briefing’ (King, M., and Song R., 2017) presented to General Synod is an example of such ‘Advocacy Science’, which this paper will illustrate.
  2. Correspondence In 2015 from then Minister of State for Care and Support, the Rt. Hon. Norman Lamb said[3] when developing public policy for responding to “Conversion Therapy”, that the lead organisation, the UK Council for Psychotherapy “has not included Core Issues Trust to date because the collaborative work – beginning with the development of a consensus statement… and the subsequent work on the Memorandum of Understanding – was between organisations that had each independently come to a position opposed to conversion therapy”. This is evidence that in the UK, policy for this issue was generated by one ideological position and diversity of opinion was, and is ignored.
  3. Core Issues Trust (Charity No:105095) calls for diversification of viewpoint when examining efficacy of professional psychotherapeutic and pastoral interventions, and developing public policy. This will help to avoid confirmation bias. Consideration of multiple view-points and the encouragement of inter- and cross-disciplinary discussion will help to facilitate checks and balances in reporting findings and setting public policy that avoids ideological dominance of any group.

2. RESEARCH DATA PRESENTED IN THE ‘SCIENCE BRIEFING’

Read here

 

Related Posts

Tags

Share This