Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
JonJayRay at STACLU has reprinted and endorsed a post from another blog that cites what appears to be a fictional presentation by Paul Cameron, the long-discredited anti-gay "researcher", making his now-familiar claim that gays allegedly live much shorter lives than straights do. The post he cites is from someone named Kenn Gividen who, not surprisingly, also seems to be an ID supporter. And he credulously cites Paul Cameron's nonsense without bothering to question it. He writes:
Legally married gays have 24 less years to live than married non-gays.That's the conclusion of a study presented to the Eastern Psychological Association's annual convention March 23. The report was prepared by Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron
He doesn't provide a link to where he copies the informatino from this alleged study. Here's the "quote" he offers from this alleged report:
In Denmark, the country with the longest history of gay marriage, for 1990-2002, married heterosexual men died at a median age of 74 while the 561 partnered gays died at an average age of 51.In Norway, married heterosexual men died at an average age of 77 and the 31 gays at 52. In Denmark, married women died at an average age of 78 compared to 56 for the 91 lesbians. In Norway, women married to men died at an average age of 81 vs. 56 for the 6 lesbians.
But I've gone over the entire agenda for the Eastern Psychological Association and find no such study presented by Cameron. He did present a poster (which is not a study) but it was about the percentage of gay people in Canada and England. Here is the poster abstract:
POSTER 1FEDERAL DISTORTION OF HOMOSEXUAL FOOTPRINT
PAUL CAMERON, KIRK CAMERON (FAMILY RESEARCH INSTITUTE)
Federal agencies are exaggerating the size of the homosexual footprint. In 2003, Statistics Canada interviewed a national random sample of 121,300 reporting 1.7% as bi/homosexual - yet inclusion of respondents aged 60+ drops it to 1.4%. In 2005, the British Department of Trade and Industry said "lesbian, gay and bisexual people constitute 5-7% of the total adult population" -- yet when adults over age 60 are included, the prevalence is closer to 1-2%.
So it would appear that we have a mystery study that may or may not exist. And it repeats the same tired nonsense that Cameron has been repeating for years now. His study on the average lifespan of gays and lesbians used such absurd methodology that it has become little more than a running joke among researchers (you can see one good takedown of the methodology here). There's a reason why Cameron has been thrown out of the American Psychological Association and officially condemned by at least two other professional organizations, as well as cited by a Federal judge for fraudulent testimony (for details, see here) and it isn't, as the anti-gay folks like to pretend, because those groups have been "taken over by homosexuals." It's because his studies simply lack all intellectual credibility and flout the professional standards of rigor.
Comments
He be playin' games with numbers again. I could pick some number of straight people that died at an early age, just like he picks X number of gay people. I could say that "760 straight poeple died at an average age of 37" and find a selected group of people who would fit those numbers. I don;t even need Mark of GMBM to tell me how wrong this study is.
Posted by: Tulle | April 9, 2007 9:33 AM
Keep your eyes peeled for The Box Turtle to shred this to pieces.
Posted by: Jon Rowe | April 9, 2007 9:37 AM
Please, oh please, tell me this isn't the bananaman again.
Posted by: doctorgoo | April 9, 2007 9:48 AM
Re: Keep your eyes peeled for The Box Turtle to shred this to pieces
The Box Turtle has struck.
Posted by: Jim Burroway | April 9, 2007 10:09 AM
doctorgoo, even more upsetting:
Seriously, please God don't let this be who we think it is. I may die laughing if someone is calling him Dr.
PS - Ed, you seem to be missing the link for "one good takedown of the methodology".
Posted by: nicole | April 9, 2007 11:47 AM
I don't know the details of this study or its refutations (Okay, I can't be arsed to look them up), but a simple explanation of these numbers would be that older gay and lesbian people are probably much less likely to be out of the closet, given their long experience with persecution in the past. There would consequently be a higher per cent of young people identifying as gay or lesbian than in the population overall. This results in a higher per cent of deaths at a young age in this group than in the general population. This, or course, would falsely lower the median or average age at death for self-identified G&Ls.
I ran into this effect when a Public Health physician tried to argue that a career in the ministry was healthier than a career in medicine, based on the age of death given in their respective obituaries. I don't have the numbers, but I am sure that over the preceding 50 years, the number of MDs in Canada increased by a lot (still not enough!) while the number of ministers was flat or even declined. An odd error for a Public Health officer to make.
Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | April 9, 2007 12:07 PM
The Box Turtle presents my argument much more clearly and convincingly than I do. Thank you!
Go to this link and learn.
Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | April 9, 2007 12:15 PM
PAUL CAMERON, KIRK CAMERON (FAMILY RESEARCH INSTITUTE)
Please, oh please, tell me this isn't the bananaman again.
You can relax: imdb.com says that the father of Kirk-the-actor-turned-fundy-loon-apologist is Robert Cameron, also an actor.
(But I think the other way would have been funny ;-).
Posted by: Eamon Knight | April 9, 2007 12:28 PM
First, to Ed: Posters ARE research studies. Since conferences only have limited time to present oral abstracts many are selected for poster presentations. Posters and oral abstracts are often used to present study findings at a conference without interferring with the authors' ability publish the findings in a professional journal. In my experience, posters and abstracts are screened, so not sure how the Camerons got their's included, but then I don't know how the EPA conference works.
The Cameron study that Gividen quoted supposedly based its findings on obituaries in local and gay papers. This, for obvious reasons, is a poor source for collecting data. Statistical analysis can be performed on anything, but the analysis is only as good as the data.
As for the EPA conference abstract/poster, again, I don't really understand how it got included in the conference since the abstract is nothing more than a rehash of someone else's work rather than original research (reviews are not generally presented as posters). And there isn't enough detail in the abstract to determine how they butchered the original works in order to support their claims.
Posted by: AggieCowboy | April 9, 2007 2:04 PM
1 - If you click on the title of the blog post at endiana.com, it will take you to the source:
http://www.religionandspirituality.com/currentEvents/view.php?StoryID=20070403-085929-7824r
2 - Cameron's research is corroberated by similar studies all of which -- not surprising -- are dismissed by gays as "rubbish." Most notable is a study by Dr. Robert S. Hogg in Canada in the 1990's which produced similar results.
Then there is this from http://www.until.org/statistics.shtml
• An estimated one million people are currently living with HIV in the United States, with approximately 40,000 new infections occurring each year.
• 70 percent of these new infections occur in men and 30 percent occur in women.
• By race, 54 percent of the new infections in the United States occur among African Americans, and 64 percent of the new infections in women occur in African American women.
• 75 percent of the new infections in women are heterosexually transmitted.
• Half of all new infections in the United States occur in people 25 years of age or younger.
3 - You are in denial. Snap out of it.
Posted by: Dnaiel Boone | April 9, 2007 2:25 PM
Dr. Hogg himseld was quite upset about the way the Religious Right misused his data:
"Over the past several months I have received correspondence from a number of people regarding a paper I wrote with Mr. Craib and Drs. Montaner, O'Shaughnessy, Schechter, and Strathdee in the International Journal of Epidemiology on the gay and bisexual life expectancy in Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s [1]. From this correspondence it appears that our research is being used by select groups in United States and other countries to suggest that gay and bisexual men live an unhealthy lifestyle that is destructive to themselves and to others. These homophobic groups appear more interested in restricting the human rights of gay and bisexuals rather than promoting their health and well being."
http://www.finnqueer.net/juttu.cgi?s=88_47_2
Posted by: John | April 9, 2007 2:54 PM
So, Dnaiel, we should deny men, people under 25 and black people civil rights? Since these are by your own numbers the people living unhealthy lifestyles. I see nothing in your "numbers" about gays.
Posted by: Tulle | April 9, 2007 3:14 PM
The money quote from Hogg's letter destroys the assertion that such work "corroberates," Camerons' "studies." And there are no other "studies" that have been done on lifespans and gays; they all trace back to the Camerons' fraudulence.
"In contrast, if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996. As we have previously reported there has been a three fold decrease in mortality in Vancouver as well as in other parts of British Columbia [2]."
Posted by: Jon Rowe | April 9, 2007 3:27 PM
Actually, Daniel, Cameron's "study" turns out to be a big joke. Jim Burroway has absolutely shredded it already. As usual, Cameron is manipulating the data. The absurdity of citing Hogg's study is that it's from the absolute peak of the AIDS crisis, before medical advances allowed those with AIDS to live far longer lives. My uncle was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and lived until 1996, which was a long time then. Now it's a short time for an AIDS patient to live after diagnosis. Citing that study is like cherry picking the stats from the black plague and declaring that Europeans die at an early age. Those numbers simply aren't relevant to the reality today.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 9, 2007 4:07 PM
Tulle,
Living a foolishly dangerous lifestyle is no reason to be denied civil rights.
Enjoy skydiving? Have at it. But don't pretend there are no risks involved.
Posted by: Dnaiel | April 9, 2007 4:25 PM
A larger problem here is even if the inference were correct, so what? There are many lifestyle choices which correspond to shorter lifespans; this is not an argument against those choices, merely a reason to make sure people are properly educated about the choices they make. Soldiers and race car drivers have shorter lives than the average person: Does that mean we should discourage people from either profession?
As for being in Dnaiel, yes there are such things as STDs. Again, so what? I also have a chronic lifestyle disease that will be with me the remainder of my life (diabetes). Again I say, so what? I freely made those choices, well aware of potential consequences.
So Dnaiel, what are you trying to say? After all, the data themselves make no policy arguments. Are you?
Posted by: kehrsam | April 9, 2007 4:40 PM
Tulle,
Living a foolishly dangerous lifestyle is no reason to be denied civil rights.
Enjoy skydiving? Have at it. But don't pretend there are no risks involved.
Fine, but don't pretend your prejudice is based on anything like research. That's intellectually dishonest.
Posted by: gwangung | April 9, 2007 5:19 PM
Kehrsam,
I think we're in agreement.
Noting the danger of skydiving doesn't get one labeled a bigot nor skydivingaphobe.
While some may use the research conclusions to forward their anti-gay agenda, the conclusions still stand.
Posted by: Dnaiel | April 9, 2007 5:56 PM
While some may use the research conclusions to forward their anti-gay agenda, the conclusions still stand.
No, they don't.
Posted by: gwangung | April 9, 2007 6:11 PM
from Dnaiel:
Functionally illiterate much, Dnaiel?
Posted by: SharonB | April 9, 2007 6:57 PM
That's where you're wrong, Daniel. The study is a joke. If you turned in that study for an undergrad project, you'd get failed. It flouts every reasonable standard of data analysis.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 9, 2007 7:11 PM
Not to mention it says nothing about being gay and female.
Only gay and male. Gee. I wonder why that is.
Posted by: Leni | April 9, 2007 8:08 PM
Daniel, the "dangerous lifestyle" of which you speak is called promiscuity, not homosexuality. Trust me, if you are monogamous or, like me, on the road so much for work that you have absolutely no time for a social life, it is remarkable how few STDS you manage to pick up.
And Box Turtle Bulletin has the best take down of this "research" that I've seen. What amazes me is that someone of Cameron's reputation is even able to submit posters - he's been kicked out of professional societies and, IIRC, barred from serving in one federal court as an expert witness because he knowingly misrepresented other researchers' work. I would think had the EPA known about his shenanigans, they would have rejected it outright.
Posted by: CPT_Doom | April 9, 2007 9:07 PM
CPT_Doom...
No sarcasm. How refreshing.
"Trust me, if you are monogamous or, like me, on the road so much for work that you have absolutely no time for a social life, it is remarkable how few STDS you manage to pick up."
Agreed.
24 percent of gay men had more than 100 partners.
43 percent of gay men had more than 500 partners.
28 percent of gay men had more than 1,000 partners.
1 - Whitehead, N.E.; Whitehead, B.K. (1999): My Genes Made Me Do It! Huntington House, Lafayette, Louisiana, calculated from Laumann et al., 1994.
2 - Paul Van de Ven et al., "A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men," Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): p. 354. Dr. Paul Van de Ven reiterated these results in a private conversation with Dr. Robert Gagnon on September 7, 2000.
3 - M. Pollak, "Male Homosexuality, Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times", ed. P. Aries and A. Bejin, translated by Anthony Forster, (New York, NY: B. Blackwell: 1985), pp. 40-61.
Your thoughts?
Posted by: Dnaiel | April 9, 2007 11:47 PM
Your thoughts?
Yes, you're most recent cite date is 1997 for research (citing a "private conversation" from 2000 isn't exactly up the standards of academic rigor). Have anything more recent, or more than three studies that corroborate your view?
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | April 10, 2007 12:38 AM
Dnaiel, its a common lie of anti-gay religionists to use aids studies to falsely generalize to all gays. Studies such as you quoted intentionally exclude monogamous gays and can't be validly used to generalize to all gays.
Proper studies show:
40-60% of gay men, and 45-80% of lesbians are in a steady relationship
J Harry-1983 in Contemporary Families and Alternative Lifestyles, ed by Macklin, Sage Publ.
L Peplau-1981, in Journal of Homosexuality 6(3):1-19
J Spada-1979, The Spada Report, New American Library Publ
b) Studies of older homosexual people show that gay relationships lasting over 20 years are not uncommon
D McWhirter-1984, The Male Couple, Prentice-Hall
S Raphael-1980, Alternative Lifestyles 3:207-230, "The Older Lesbian"
C Silverstein-1981, Man to Man: Gay Couples in America, William Morrow Publ.
c) In a large sample of couples followed for 18 months the following "break up" statistics were observed: lesbians=22%, gay=16%, cohabiting heterosexuals=17%
Blumstein and Schwartz (1983) American Couples: Money, Work, Sex; Morrow Publ.
In a study of sexual behavior in homosexuals and heterosexuals, the researchers found that of gay and bisexual men, 24% had one male partner in their lifetime, 45% had 2-4 male partners, 13% had 5-9 male partners, and 18% had 10 or more sexual partners, which produces a mean of less than 6 partners. (The statistics using the data presented, which is presented as a percentage of total males interviewed, both gay and straight (p. 345) can be verified yourself by looking at the numbers given in the paper)(Fay; n=97 gay males of 1450 males total). In a parallel study, a random sample of primarily straight men (n=3111 males who had had vaginal intercourse; of the total sample of n=3224 males, only 2.3% had indicated having had sex with both men and women), the mean number of sexual partners was 7.3, with 28.2% having 1-3 partners, and 23.3% having greater than 19 partners (Billy). This data indicates that gay men may have fewer number of sexual partners than heterosexuals.
J Billy-1993: Family Planning Perspectives 25:52-60
R Fay-1989, Science 243:338-348
In another set of studies, the first (n=2664) showed that gay men had an average of 6.5 sexual partners in the past 5 years. In fact, the authors of this paper report that "homosexual and bisexual men are much more likely than heterosexual men to be celibate" given the data in the table below, which compares their data to a second, parallel study of only heterosexual men (n=1235, age=18-49 yrs). The table indicates the percentage of men having the given number of sexual partners in the previous year [top row: Binson; bottom row: Dolcini]:
orientation no partners 1 partner 2+ partners
gay 24 % 41 % 35 %
straight 8 % 80 % 12 %
D Binson-1995: Journal of Sex Research 32: 245-54.
M Dolcini-1993: Family Planning Perspectives 25: 208-14.
Posted by: Randi Schimnosky | April 10, 2007 4:21 PM
Your thoughts?
Given your thoughts about the original Cameron study, which you've yet to reconsider, you'll pardon us if we take a look at the studies you cite to make sure they really say what you say they do?
Posted by: gwangung | April 10, 2007 5:15 PM
dnaiel:
Those numbers you throw out are obviously mutually exclusive categories - if 43% of gay man have more than 500 partners, and 24% have more than 100, then those are not overlapping categories. If they were the 'more than 100' category would of necessity be larger than the 'more than 500' category, as the latter would be a subset of the former.
So, lets add them up. 24% + 43% + 28% = 95%.
You are claiming that 19 of 20 gay men have had more than 100 sex partners in their lives.
I call bullshit.
Posted by: Lee | April 10, 2007 8:53 PM
Lee,
The total would be 71 percent.
I'm not saying it, but passing on stats from those who do.
Surveys rely on the accuracy of those being surveyed. I doubt every participant remembers the exact number of partners.
The Cameron study has the advantage of tabulating absolutes.
more...
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/feb/05021709.html
Posted by: dnaiel | April 10, 2007 11:34 PM
Lee,
The total would be 71 percent.
No, it wouldn't.
Dude, you're not even READING your own stats, let alone the comments on them.
How can we take you seriously when it's obvious that you're innumerate?????
Posted by: gwangung | April 10, 2007 11:46 PM
dnaiel.
1. Learn to add.
2. The Cameron study has the "advantage" of dishonestly comparing an age dependent statistic between two populations with different age structures. Your defense of the Cameron study, in the face of clear and convincing explanations of the flaws in its methodology, goes a long way toward disqualifying any intellectual respect I might have had for you.
3. Your citation says this, early on:
"anal sex as practiced by most gay men, has a large number of diseases associated with it, "many of which are rare or even unknown in the heterosexual population" such as: anal cancer, Chlamydia trachomatis, Cryptosporidium, Giardia lamblia, Herpes simplex virus, HIV, Human papilloma virus, Isospora belli, Microsporidia, Gonorrhoea, Syphilis, Hepatitis B and C and others."
Not one of those diseases is 'rare or even unknown" in the heterosexual population - that is a flat out lie. The article does not get any better from there. Your disqualification is complete.
Posted by: Lee | April 11, 2007 12:12 AM
BTW, those cites:
The first cite is My Genes Made Me Do It!
NE Whitehead, B Whitehead - 1999 - Huntington House Publishers, an out-of-print book by two authors who seem to be affiliated with the "homosexual recovery" movement. dnaiel attributes the data to 'Laumann et al 1994.'
The only Laumann et al 1994 on PubMed is:
Laumann EO, Michael RT, Gagnon JH. A political history of the national sex survey of adults. Fam Plann Perspect. 1994 Jan-Feb;26(1):34-8.
So the "source" for the first cite is a political history of a sex survey, not the actual survey or a primary publication with the actual data. Gee.
There are a number of other Laumann et all papers between 1989 and 1997. The closest to anything that might be relevant is "Monitoring AIDS and other rare population events: a network approach. J Health Soc Behav. 1993 Mar;34(1):7-22." From its abstract: "This paper replicates and extends an earlier attempt to use data from the General Social Survey (GSS) to track the distribution of AIDS across demographic subgroups. (The GSS asks respondents whether they know a person with AIDS [PWA].) The gender, racial, age, and regional composition of the set of PWAs reported by GSS respondents is compared with that of the official AIDS cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)."
Nope, that ain't it, is it.
Most of the rest of the Laumann et al papers have to do with sexual disfunction - that is, guys who cant get it up.
I didn't bother with the remaining two of dnaiel's cites - this one being so obviously irrelevant, I didn't see any reason to further waste my time..
Posted by: Lee | April 11, 2007 12:45 AM
Lee,
First, my apologies. I thought this would be obvious.
A - 24 percent of gay men had more than 100 partners.
B - 43 percent of gay men had more than 500 partners.
C - 28 percent of gay men had more than 1,000 partners.
Someone who had more than 500 partners also had more than 100 partners. Analogy: If you have more than $500 you also have more than $100. B includes A.
If we consider also that those who had more than 1,000 partners would include 65 percent of those who had more than 500 partners, the total sum would be less than 71 percent.
Second, considering the flood of hate that flows when such statistics are provided gives cause to wonder how many credible researchers decline to delve into health statistics for gays rather than risk being stigmatized by gay activists bent on destroying the reputations of any and all researchers whose conclusions would contradict the current prevailing politically correct direction of the gay agenda.
Third, among those who did: (copy/paste)
In 2005 a groups of physicians representing a broad spectrum of disciplines presented a brief to Canada's Parliament. The presentation was titled "Gay Marriage and Homosexuality, Some Medical Comments."
The brief revealed that most gay men engage in anal sex, a practice associated with a wide variety of serious health risks. Among those are anal cancer, Chlamydia trachomatis, Cryptosporidium, Giardia lamblia, Herpes simplex virus, HIV, Human papilloma virus, Isospora belli, Microsporidia, Gonorrhoea, Syphilis, Hepatitis B and C.
The reports authors were listed as John Shea, MD, FRCP (C), Radiologist; John K. Wilson, MD, FRCP (C), Cardiologist; Paul Ranalli, MD, FRCP (C), Neurologist; Christina Paulaitis, MD, CCFP, Family Physician; Luigi Castagna, MD, FRCP (C), Paediatric Neurologist; Hans-Christian Raabe, MD, MRCP MRCGP Internist; W. André Lafrance, MD, FRCP (C), Dermatologist.
Posted by: dnaiel | April 11, 2007 8:03 AM
You may take my comments with a grain of whatever spice you wish, because I am not a scientist or statistician, nor have I read closely all the studies cited above. Also, I'm straight, a woman, and have monogamous relationships.
But how the heck does anyone, straight or gay, manage to have 1,000 different sex partners in a normal lifetime? I don't think I even know one thousand people (and I'm in a job where I see lots of people), much less a thousand that I'd be willing to have sex with. And where do these men come up with the time, for pete's sake, to have all this illicit sex, particularly if they're supposed to have shortened life spans?
Are there some secret underground open-24-hours assembly-line sex mills of which I'm unaware? Is it like the everyone-lines-up-to-shake-hands thing they do at certain team sporting events, only with butt sex? Must we assume that a gay man has no life other than his sex life? How do the guys on Queer Eye find time to redecorate, get pedicures and plan fabulous menus?
I just don't get it. Pragmatically, the "28 percent of gay men had more than 1,000 partners" thing sounds like bullshit to me.
Posted by: folderol | April 11, 2007 12:16 PM
Second, considering the flood of hate that flows when such statistics are provided gives cause to wonder how many credible researchers decline to delve into health statistics for gays rather than risk being stigmatized by gay activists bent on destroying the reputations of any and all researchers whose conclusions would contradict the current prevailing politically correct direction of the gay agenda.
The flood of "hate" is more like a flood of derision.
It took SEVERAL posts pointing out your rather obvious error in the stats you posted before you admitted. That in itself is sloppy.
You have STILL not addressed the methodological sloppiness brought up in the Cameron studies.
The first thing YOU need to do is to bring some intellectual rigor for your own ideas. The "flood of hate" is irrelevant if your own "evidence" are poorly gathered, poorly constructed and poorly thought out.
You will not and CANNOT be taken seriously until you take care of careless, sloppy work that's been pointed out to you. Ignoring it will just brand you an idiot and a twit---that's such an obvious point that it shouldn't have to be pointed out.
Posted by: gwangung | April 11, 2007 12:38 PM
"But how the heck does anyone, straight or gay, manage to have 1,000 different sex partners in a normal lifetime?"
Thank you for that comment. The few gay people I know have a hard enough time finding any suitable partners.
Posted by: John | April 11, 2007 12:38 PM
Lee did a nice job of taking on who Whitehead and Lauman are.
One of the whiteheads who authored My Genes Made Me Do It is also the author of Craving for Love: Relationship Addiction, Homosexuality, and the God Who Heals.
The study by Van de Ven et al. that was the souurce of the figure
is also interesting. Van de Ven is a legitimate investigator, however his figures are badly mangled. You can see the text of the study here. Many things are mangled in dnaiel's statement. The study focuses on older gay men, and the data reported on this issue reflect that age group (>49y.o.). Recruitment for the study would definitely skew respondents to the more sexually active end of the spectrum. From the Methods section:
The numbers are totally mangled. Here is the relevent paragraph from the results. Again this is for the older gay men subset of the data:
There are 5 categories of less than 100 lifetime partners. The minimum percentage of respondents possible with fewer than 100 partners is 2.7 % (1 partner) + 4 x 10.2%(= 40.8%) (the remaining 4 categories of below 100 lifetime partners multiplied by the lowest reported response rate) that's 43.5% of respondents had fewer than 100 partners. Adding in the remaining 21.6% of respondents who reported in the range of 101-500 partners lifetime gives 65.1%. Note that this is a minumum value. Because the data are not completely reported here, I had to assume that all 4 catgories between 2 and 99 lifetime partners were the minimum reported value of 10.2% of respondents. The actual number is likely substatially lower than that. And all of this based on a voluntary survey taregeted toward the very sexually active component of the gay community. Where does dnaiel get the figure 43% having more than 1000 lifetime partners? I suspect he was assisted by a doctor with a flashlight. Also, does he bother giving any of the caveats that a report of study should include (older cohort reported, highly skewed demographic in sample)? Nope, he just says that 43% of gay me have had >500 lifetime partners. Very misleading.Posted by: DougT | April 11, 2007 1:20 PM
dnaiel.
B CAN NOT include A.
If those numbers are correct, all 43% of men who had more than 500 partners ALSO had more than 100 partners, so the percent of men with more than 100 partners MUST be greater than 43%. But the number listed is only is only 24%, so that number CAN NOT include the people who had more than 500 partners. Likewise, all 28% of men with more than 1000 partners also had more than 100 partners, but 28% is also larger than 24%. Your numbers can NOT be interpreted the way you are claiming - they don't add up.
---
BTW, Ive now tried to track down the primary references you cite, and find that neither of them are listed in pubmed, although other papers by those authors are.
---
Where does the "hatred" claim come from? I don't hate you - I think your intellectual rigor is lacking. I find it telling that when called on obvious errors of fact and analysis, your response is to repeat the errors.
And finally, my primary intent is to call you on those errors. I should perhaps have made it clear from the beginning - who cares? I know committed gay couples who have been together over 30 years, I know gay couples who are loving and committed parents, I know gay men who (as John point out above) have little sex through lack of partner, and I know gay men (and one quite happy and successful straight woman, btw) who have more sex than I could dream of. Unless they have let me into their lives as friends and choose to share personal details, it is none of my frickin' business what they do with their sex lives. Nor yours.
Posted by: Lee | April 11, 2007 1:42 PM
gwangung,
Trying to respond to every question, objection, comment, etc., would be a bit cumbersome. But -- for what it's worth -- the insights are appreciated, particularly when they come without the sarcasms.
Concerning the sloppiness...
That's a subjective perspective. By analogy, fans attending a basketball game are outraged at the sloppy referees when their team loses. The winning team thinks the ref's performances were outstanding.
The stolid component of the Cameron study was the absolute elements, namely, the ages of death were absolutes, not opinions. The numbers of deaths reported were also absolutes. Such is not the case with polling in which responses are subjective to faulty memories, exaggerations, intentional misrepresentations, etc.
Political polls are a classic example. While valuable, they seldom reflect the actual outcome of an election, even when conducted at voting sites. Recounts of actual votes (remember Florida's chads?) prove the unreliability of the most reliable poll in existence: elections.
My point being - the Cameron study surpassed the conventional information gathering method of polling in that the source information is verifiable by anyone who cares to repeat the process. Try this: Pick up a copy of your local newspaper, tabulate the average age of adults in the obituaries, perhaps ruling out accidental deaths. Over the course of week, you should have an indicator that would parallel closely to information provided by the US Census Bureau. Do the same with gay publications that publish obituaries. You may not like the ref's call, but it is what it is.
To folderol: 3 partners per week over ten years would be 1,560 partners. That 28 percent of gay men manage that feat seems to be a stretch, but well within the scope of possibility.
Thanks again for you comments.
Posted by: dnaiel | April 11, 2007 2:08 PM
dnaiel, let me try an extreme example, and see if yo get it.
Some babies die - it's tragic, but it happens. SIDS, accident, rare disease, etc. The age of death is absolute, not gathered from polls. Its solid, verifiable. Just like you argue above is a 'strength' of the Cameron analysis.
The average age of death of a baby is under one year.
By Cameron's analysis (and yours) we must therefore conclude that being a baby reduces one's life expectancy from somewhere in the 70s, to less than one year.
This is EXACTLY the same analysis Cameron used, and that you are defending.
Posted by: Lee | April 11, 2007 2:39 PM
To folderol: 3 partners per week over ten years would be 1,560 partners. That 28 percent of gay men manage that feat seems to be a stretch, but well within the scope of possibility.
Nope, I still don't buy it. I can understand three acts of sex per week, times 10 years, equals 1,560 acts of sex (lucky bastards!). But am I reading the findings incorrectly when I assume the "1,000 partners" means one thousand different partners?
I want to re-emphasize that I'm not a statistician (and with statistics, aren't all things within the realm of possibility?), but if I were gay, and trying to find a partner with whom to have sex, and needed to find a different person three times a week (because, apparently, I'm like an out-of-control jackrabbit in rut and don't care about love or relationships or happiness or working or sleeping), wouldn't I run out of available candidates pretty quickly? Would I have to move to a new town? Automate my entry on craigslist? Become a porn star?
Perhaps I'm sheltered and naive, but I've always thought that, other than the preference for a particular gender as a sex partner, straight people and gay people have pretty much the same sex lives. Some see lots of action, some don't. My empirical evidence supports this -- my many gay friends and colleagues aren't constantly humping each other in the restrooms. Neither are my straight friends and colleagues. Sex is one itty-bitty part of life.
Dnaiel, regarding your comment "Pick up a copy of your local newspaper, tabulate the average age of adults in the obituaries, perhaps ruling out accidental deaths. Over the course of week, you should have an indicator that would parallel closely to information provided by the US Census Bureau."
Newspaper obituaries are not necessarily gleaned from coroner's death records. Many newspapers only post death notices that are sent to them by (grieving) relatives or friends. Often, obituaries are paid items. Using newspaper obits as statistical indications of anything isn't solid research. Using the obits in a niche publication seems even more suspect.
Posted by: folderol | April 11, 2007 3:06 PM
dnaiel,
Sloppiness in methodology is emphatically NOT just a subjective matter. That's the interesting thing about science. Everything that you do has to be transparent and reproducible. You have to say exactly how you did what you did, and show your analysis. You get peer reviewed. A referee at a basketball game may have others second guessing him, but he does not have to send every single call that he makes to a panel of peer referees for review before the call is allowed to stand. A scientist does. You might consider that a lot of what you are interpreting as hatred (and a lot of the source of the sarcasm that you dislike) is actually frustration and anger with these arguments. Frustration because no matter how many times they are carefully refuted and flaws are rigorously exposed, they keep coming back again and again and again. Anger because people get tired of being misrepresented. How would you feel if someone took survey-based data obtained from people recruited at singles bars, massage parlors, brothels and swingers clubs and then tried to apply the conclusions to all heterosexuals or all married people? Of course people get angry after a time, and why shouldn't they?
Posted by: DougT | April 11, 2007 7:33 PM
However, the quality of the source information is irrelevant if the results of the analysis are nonsensical. Here's a calculation that shows that Cameron's study must be flawed (adapted from here and comments therein).
Cameron's data show that gay men are 116 times more likely to be victims of murder than straight men are. We'll call this factor X.
Cameron also claims that gay men make up 1.6% of the male population. We'll call this fraction g.
Now, let the (unknown) number of straight men murdered per 100,000 straight men be called S. According to Cameron, the number of gay men murdered per 100,000 gay men will be X * S.
The ratio between the total number of gay men killed to the total number of straight men killed will thus be:
(gay murder rate * chance of being gay) / (straight murder rate * chance of being straight)
or
(X * S * g) / (S * (1 - g))
Our unknown S cancels out, giving us:
X * g / (1 - g)
Plugging in Cameron's numbers (X=116 and g=0.016), we find that this ratio is 1.9; that is, there are almost twice as many gay men murdered as straight men.
Cameron's study tells us that two out of every three murders have gay victims!
How can this possibly be true? If this were the case, wouldn't the Dread Liberal Media be talking about the horrible epidemic of gay murders pretty much non-stop? Given this nonsensical result, can Cameron's study really be believed, no matter how "absolute" the original data are?
Posted by: Alex | April 11, 2007 7:39 PM
Alex,
Agreed. Those number don't work.
Expressing it differently:
150 million male population x .016 gay = 2.4 million gays
If 1 percent of gays were murdered annually: 24,000 murdered
(That exceeds the number of males murdered in 2005 - less than 13,000)
However,
Is the 116 statistic Cameron's? Or is it deduced?
If Cameron claims that 1 percent of the gay population is murdered annually, the numbers won't work.
However, if Cameron's claim is that 1 percent of gay men will be murdered during their adult lifetime:
The number of gays murdered annually would be about 727, or 5.67 percent of males murdered in 2005. This number is derived by dividing 24,000 by 33 (age 51 - age 18 = 33 years).
Note "if."
I would like to see quotes from Cameron.
Posted by: dnaiel | April 11, 2007 10:17 PM
It's Cameron's, from Cameron, Paul; Playfair, William L.; Wellum, Stephen. "The lifespan of homosexuals." Paper presented at Eastern Psychological Association Convention (April 17, 1993).
In this work, he also claims that lesbians are 487 times more likely to die of murder, suicide or accident as straight women. He also says that 2.6% of all gay men were murdered in the twelve-year span covered by his research study.
This is why Cameron's results do not agree with Hogg's Vancouver study. Hogg was dealing with an urban population of gay men in the early days of AIDS medication disproportionately selected from venues where anonymous sex encounters are common. Hogg never claimed that his life results applied to gay people at large, nor did he say that the discrepancy was due to anything but AIDS fatalities.
Cameron, on the other hand, claims that his results apply to gay men and women at large, and that even subtracting AIDS fatalities, gay men and women are far more likely to die young than straight men and women. Here's a direct quote from Cameron's study: "For those 829 who died of non-AIDS causes the median age of death was forty-two (41 for those 315 with a LTSP and 43 for those 514 without) and
That's why Hogg's data don't "corroborate" Cameron's - they were measuring two entirely different statistics.
Personally, as a former statistical physicist, it disturbs me that none of Cameron's results ever include confidence intervals. Either the man is an incompetent statistician who doesn't know how to do the simplest of confidence tests, or he knows that his tiny data sets would result in confidence intervals that are as large, if not larger, than his actual results, thus showing that they are mere statistical noise.
Posted by: Alex | April 12, 2007 9:35 AM
Concerning the sloppiness...
That's a subjective perspective
Absolutely not.
Either you check your figures, or you did not. There's nothing "subjective" about quoting figures that do not make sense. There's nothing "subjective" about constructing a study that its methodologically flawed. The whole POINT of using correct methodology is to avoid subjectivity. You don't use correct methodology, you are being sloppy.
You are being either intellectually dishonest or you are massively misinformed as to what consists of correct methodology. Either way, that makes your comments useless on this issue until you correct that problem.
Posted by: gwangung | April 12, 2007 10:25 AM
Newspaper obituaries are not necessarily gleaned from coroner's death records. Many newspapers only post death notices that are sent to them by (grieving) relatives or friends. Often, obituaries are paid items. Using newspaper obits as statistical indications of anything isn't solid research. Using the obits in a niche publication seems even more suspect.
Any obituary that is a paragraph notice is a paid notice. In recent years, newspapers in major metropolitan areas have dropped death notices from the local coroner; most smaller publications in smaller regions have also done so. (I happen to know this since I work in a profession that regularly needs to verify deaths).
Posted by: gwangung | April 12, 2007 10:29 AM
It should be noted that Daniel who is posting here defending Gividen is not actually someone named Daniel Boone at all but appears to be Kenn Gividen writing under a false name to defend himself. As some of you know these comment sections often automatically add in details that you have provided in previvousl forms like it. So it may add in name email address and url automaically. If you are posting under a psuedonym you have to delete your name. Of course if you don't also change the url that can give away things. And if you run your cursor over all the emails from Daniel, over his name in particular, you will see that everytime the link goes to the Gividen web site. So Kenn, come out of the closet.
Posted by: CLS | April 12, 2007 11:15 AM
Alex,
Two things:
1 - I'm getting conflicting numbers.
In your April 11, 2007 07:39 PM post it appears that Cameron is claiming 1 percent of gay men die annually. In your most recent post you quote him as saying 2.6% of gay men were murdered over a 12 year period. Did he make both claims? Or am I missing something?
2 - Concerning Cameron's April 17, 1993 paper, do you know where I can access an original to read his actual words? Link?
Or, is there an online source where all or most his his publications can be reviewed? I'm googled, but can find nothing.
3 - CLS: My browser does not automatically fill in the blanks. I have to enter it on every occasion.
Posted by: dnaiel | April 12, 2007 4:45 PM
dnaiel-
Interesting response to CLS. So your browser doesn't automatically fill in the blanks. You chose to be silent on CLS' main point. ANd for some reason, your name still links you to a web site that Gividen is an author on. So how about a direct response. Are you Kenn Gividen or aren't you?
Posted by: DougT | April 12, 2007 6:23 PM
In your April 11, 2007 07:39 PM post it appears that Cameron is claiming 1 percent of gay men die annually.
It does? I don't see the figure "1 percent" anywhere in my previous post. Where are you getting this number from? The only "1" in my entire post comes from (1 - g), which is the presumed percentage of straight men in the population (i.e., 100% - 1.6%). You seem to have come up with the 1% all by yourself.
Concerning Cameron's April 17, 1993 paper, do you know where I can access an original to read his actual words? Link?
The abstract of the eventually published paper (which was titled "The Longevity of Homosexuals: Before and After the AIDS Epidemic" and published in Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, vol. 29, pp. 249-272, 1994) is available here, about halfway down the page:
http://www.familyresearchinst.org/PublishedArticles/tabid/57/Default.aspx
This abstract contains the exact quote (saying that gay men and women have a median age in the 40's even excluding AIDS deaths) that I reproduced in my last comment.
I can't find the full paper online either, but every single person who has examined his claims is using exactly the same numbers. Even the people who support his claims just credulously repeat the ridiculous numbers without ever thinking how impossible they are.
Speaking of links, what can you link to that corroborates Cameron's claim that gay men and women have an average lifespan of less than 50 years old even discounting AIDS deaths?
Posted by: Alex | April 12, 2007 8:30 PM
Just a thought...
4.12 male homicides per 100,000 in 2004*
If there were
8.90 gay homicides per 100,000 in 2004
that would be 116 percent
*Stats I found reveal
1. The homicide rate in 2004 was 5.5
2. The percentage of male homicides est 74.9%
3. 5.5 x .749 = 4.12 x 2.16 = 8.9
Homicide rates:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab.htm
By gender:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm
Other question brought up...
For corroborating links regarding gay health risks see updated:
http://indiananews.blogspot.com/2007/04/gay-marriage-deadlier-than-smoking.html
1 percent was hypothetical to illustrate the point. Note "if."
Posted by: dnaiel | April 14, 2007 12:42 AM
Your numbers make no sense. There can't be more gay homicides per year than male homicides, since gay homicides are a proper subset of male homicides. You need to start with the number of male homicides, say that that equals straight homicides + gay homicides, and solve for your unknown quantities. Please review the algebra in my post from April 11, 2007 07:39 PM. Please also stop claiming that you have "conflicting numbers" when one of those numbers was a hypothetical that you just made up. That's not a conflict, that's an invalid hypothetical.
That's all risks due to HIV/AIDS, which is not what I asked for. Let me repeat my question: "what can you link to that corroborates Cameron's claim that gay men and women have an average lifespan of less than 50 years old even discounting AIDS deaths?"
Posted by: Alex | April 14, 2007 11:04 AM
You are right. There cannot be more gay homicides than the total number of homicides.
But that's not what Dr. Cameron was saying. He did not say that for every one homicide there were 116 gay homicides. That is nonsensical.
The number of homicides are relative to the set quantity (100,000) relative to specific groups.
And...
I simply disagree. I believe the links provided at endiana.com do provide adequate collaboration.
BTW - Thanks for the intelligent conversation. It is refreshing to hear serious questions and responses rather than the usual fare of pointless sarcastic barbs.
And thanks to Ed Brayton, whoever he is, for providing this forum for discussion.
Posted by: dnaiel | April 14, 2007 2:49 PM
No, I never said he did - but he did say that gay people are 116 times more likely to be murdered than straight people (he said it here for example, about halfway down the page). This number, as I proved above, would say that there are two gay men murdered for every one straight man murdered. Do you dispute my algebra in any way?
Yes, Cameron's results are indeed nonsensical. Two gay murders for every one straight one is simply not believable.
Posted by: Alex | April 14, 2007 5:49 PM
Alex: Do you dispute my algebra in any way?
Yes. Not the formula but misapplication of the formula.
But I don't know what to add other than the explanation offered in the previous post.
also,
I'm unable to discern if the information at http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron2.html is Cameron's work or if it is derived from Cameron's work -- inspite of the the fact that his name is used in the the by-line.
Posted by: dnaiel | April 14, 2007 7:50 PM
dnaiel, your link is a copy of the pamphlet on Cameron's website, but the arguments in that article appear just as inaccurate as his other studies.
Posted by: jmc | April 14, 2007 8:16 PM
That information is identical to the information at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRI_EduPamphlet3.html This website is Cameron's own organization, so it must be his work.
This contains the quote that gays are "116 times more apt to be murdered", which is what my calculation above was based on. How exactly is my algebra mistaken or misapplied?
Your explanation offered was incorrect - you said that the factor was "116 percent", when Cameron clearly says "116 times". Thus, your explanation was off by a factor of 100. A factor of 116 times is actually 11,600 percent.
Posted by: Alex | April 14, 2007 11:51 PM
To JMC - Thanks
To Alex - 116 times vs 116 percent
Obviously they're not the same, but when considered relative to 100,000, 116 times may be more accurate.
4.2 x 116 = 487.2
That is, there would be 487.2 gay homicide per 100,000 gays, or 0.487 percent.
Note: I'm not taking Cameron's 116 as gospel truth, having not seen the underlying research, but when relative to 100,000 gay males, its plausible.
Misapplied. The 116 factor is misapplied when it is relative to the male population rather than the gay male population. That should be obvious, considering the number is greater than the whole.
My concern is that thousands of men are dying. The gays ignore it; the anti-gays abuse it.
Posted by: dnaiel | April 15, 2007 10:43 PM
The "116 times" figure is clearly footnoted as coming from Cameron's obituary study that you started off defending.
Look, you seem to be having trouble with the numbers, so I'll break it down for you:
Homicide rate for 2004 = 5.5 per 100,000
If male homicides make up 74.9% of this, while males are 49.2% of the population (note that you forgot to adjust for the fraction of the population that is male in your April 14, 2007 12:42 AM comment), then the male homicide rate is:
(5.5 x .749) per (100,000 x .492) = 4.12 per 49,200
which is 8.37 per 100,000.
Now, if we accept Cameron's 1.6% gay figure, then of these 100,000 men 1,600 are gay and 98,400 are straight. In order to replicate the 116 times figure, then the 8.37 homicides would have to break down as 5.47 gay-victim homicides and 2.90 straight-vicitim homicides. Proof:
5.47 + 2.90 = 8.37 (so the total number of male homicides is correct).
Gay rate = 5.47 / 1,600 = 0.34%
Straight rate = 2.90 / 98,400 = 0.0029%
So the ratio is (0.34% / 0.0029%) = 116 (so Cameron's finding is reproduced).
Which says that if Cameron's numbers are correct, then the ratio of actual gay homicides to actual straight homicides is 5.47/2.90 = 1.9, just as I said ages ago. According to Cameron's research, for every straight man killed, 1.9 gay men are killed. Do you really endorse this figure? Can you find any error in my math?
No, it's totally implausible, unless you believe that two out of every three male homicides involve gay victims.
If this is truly your concern, then I'd advise you to stop promoting research that generates impossible results. By endorsing a study that you admit that you haven't read in detail, a study that produces numbers that flatly can't be true, a study that has been debunked by a scholar from the conservative Manhattan Institute and by reorientation therapist Warren Throckmorton - by doing all this you end up reducing your own credibility, making yourself look like someone who will accept any random numbers, no matter how ridiculous or made-up, so long as they support your agenda. By doing this, you silence your own voice by reducing its credibility to zero.
I have never said that rampant promiscuity does not carry risks. I have limited myself to arguing against this particular study because it is so obviously untruthful.
I ask you, if you show that you're so willing to promote the obviously untruthful as truthful, then how can people believe anything you say?
Posted by: Alex | April 16, 2007 9:50 AM
Okay, let's take those numbers as accurate. In a population that includes 100,000 gays with the murder rates you gave, how many heterosexual males would we expect to be murdered?
If 1.6% of all males are gay, then a population that included 100,000 gays would consist of:
100,000 / 0.016 = 6,250,000 total males AND
6,250,000 - 100,000 = 6,150,000 straight males
Dnaiel doesn't specify whether the 4.2 murders per 100,000 is for the entire male population or if it is the murder rate for heterosexual males. So let's do the calulation for both:
6,250,000 * 4.2 / 100,000 = 262.5 total male murders per 100,000 gay men OR
6,150,000 * 4.2 / 100,000 = 258.3 straight male murders per 100,000 gay men
The first is clearly impossible. The second brings us right back to the 1.9 figure (487.2/258.3=1.886). And the ratios of gay:total and gay:straight murders will always be the same, no matter what the overall murder rate is, if Cameron's 1.6% and 116 figures are believed to be accurate.
I don't doubt that Cameron is accurately reporting the raw data. The problem is that the raw data is clearly not representative of the populations being studied. Therefore, any conclusions he reached with such data are inaccurate and are not to be cited with any competent authority. Many people have explained why his results are skewed, so I won't belabor the point. But the fact is, his study is seriously flawed for known reasons, and without the appropriate corrective factors, the conclusions it draws are useless.
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | April 16, 2007 2:09 PM
Judge Buchmeyer: A Liar
http://familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=65
Posted by: Phillips | May 26, 2007 4:28 PM