Australia to vote on Gay marrige - Page 33

On October 22 2011 16:17 Evil_Monkey_ wrote:



Peer reviewed or not, these aren't rock hard facts that you're using it as. None of you distinguish between natural sciences (where you have rock hard facts, I.E. the world is round) and human sciences (Does having homosexual parents effect the child's views on sexuality or the parents ability to be good parents), you just accept one study as rock hard facts. Posting a study or a survey on something does not make it fact. In addition, if you actually conducted and published a study that proved homosexual parents to be bad parents or their parenting to have an adverse effect on their children's view on sexuality, what would happen? In Denmark you'd get hanged in the press and called a biggot, just like when one of our university professors published a study showing men had higher average iq's than women.

On October 22 2011 14:51 ControlMonkey wrote:
My opinion:

Being christian, I don't think homosexuality is ok.

However, if people are gay, then they should be allowed to be gay. It's not as if it is hurting anyone. Why should my view of morality be forced on everyone? I don't want others to force their weird morality on me.

If we accept that homosexuality is allowable, then it is not to big a leap to accept that homosexual marriage is allowable. Marriage is not just a christian institution, it is a cultural & legal thing as well.

On October 22 2011 16:30 Rhine wrote:


Are you seriously saying people who are anti gay get persecuted? lol...what about the gay kids? It has nothing to do with "hard facts." The natural sciences are just as fuzzy most of the time. There is a lot of room for ambiguity and it's difficult to get at the real universe directly. It's different than something like physics, but not in the same way you think, i believe. And no, it's not about 1 study that says something one way or the other. It's about a whole body of work.

Unfortunately, you appear to believe that it's all part of the agenda and that the work that's been done is all biased. I dont understand this point, and i don't think you have sufficient exposure to all the facets in this debate. Just look at Masamune's post for instance. Does he also have an agenda because he's got a lot of knowledge on current genetics and evolution theory?

On October 22 2011 17:06 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +Really? What about that vaccine ----> autism study which caused en entire generation of British neonates to not receive the MMR? Wasn't that peer reviewed and cited? To my understanding it was even in a reputable journal. Science isn't as powerful as you think my friend
Medicine is a perfect example: What we think to be "right" at the moment, will almost all be "wrong" within 20 years. Life-long learning for a doctor sucks, but that's that

On October 22 2011 17:06 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +Really? What about that vaccine ----> autism study which caused en entire generation of British neonates to not receive the MMR? Wasn't that peer reviewed and cited? To my understanding it was even in a reputable journal. Science isn't as powerful as you think my friend
Medicine is a perfect example: What we think to be "right" at the moment, will almost all be "wrong" within 20 years. Life-long learning for a doctor sucks, but that's that

On October 22 2011 17:18 vetinari wrote:


Gay kids get the fuck bullied out of them at school. Anything that can be vaguely deemed sexist, racist, homophobic gets hounded by the press and academia. And when I say sexist/racist/homophobic, that means anything that paints women, blacks, gays in a bad light, compared to men, whites and straights.

Even if its true.

Consider larry summers. He told the fucking truth, that high IQ men outnumber high IQ women. He lost his job over it.

Yet you get prominent feminists calling all men rapists, and they keep their jobs for life. Or hell, every week, you get another article calling men useless. Have you ever read an article calling women useless?

On October 22 2011 17:33 DannyJ wrote:


Bad example. That Autism / vaccine study was refuted by tons of others for a decade. It was hyped up by people who had no idea what they were talking about, like celebrities, and was just ingrained in stupid parents minds which caused people to go way overboard.

On October 22 2011 17:31 Badboyrune wrote:


I'm not saying science is always right, in that case we wouldn't need to carry out any more science. I'm not really read up on the vaccine issue so I can't really comment much. I do think it would be strange if doctors started recommending parents not to vaccinate their children base of off one study (I would find it more likely that for example media found out about this one study and blew it all up for sensationalism like they tend to do. But as I said I'm not read up on in so please do correct me.).

Sometimes even studies done with good methodology will yield false results, that is true. That is also why things are tested and retested, people redo other peoples experiments to try to repeat previous results. All this is done to be as sure as possible that results are accurate.
In this case we were discussing many studies have been made that all point towards the same direction. As far as I know few, if any, studies have contradicted the results. From wikipedia: 'Judith Stacey, of New York University, stated: “Rarely is there as much consensus in any area of social science as in the case of gay parenting, which is why the American Academy of Pediatrics and all of the major professional organizations with expertise in child welfare have issued reports and resolutions in support of gay and lesbian parental rights”'.

And yes, much of what we know is going to turn out to be false to some degree. I don't think that means that going saying the things that are currently agreed upon by science are false unless you have something substantial to back that up with. Doctors will continue to use whatever methods have been scientifically establish to be the most effective ones because as far as we know they are the best ones. New research might be discovered that changes that and then doctors would change their ways.

Just like psychologists would if large amounts of evidence suddenly turned up that said that gay parenting was indeed harmful for the children.

On October 22 2011 18:18 vetinari wrote:
One case? Look, what I am saying is that there is a massive bias in academia (and the press*) towards liberal attitudes. For some reason, liberals/progressive/greens types tend to gravitate towards the academic life, while conservative views are far more prevalent in the private sector. We aren't talking about 5% differences here either. Psychology students are two hundred times more likely to be liberal than conservative, while liberals make up only 20% of the general population.

For this reason, even peer reviewed psychology articles need to be taken with a bucket of salt, whenever the subject matter could possibly be politicised. Researchers have agendas too, and they aren't above using some creative sampling techniques.

For the exact same reason you should look at studies produced by the heritage foundation carefully, take the findings of the soft sciences, (especially the dismal science), very, very carefully. A lot of psychology is a circle jerk. There is a reason it has a reputation almost as bad as homeopathy.

*obviously, fox news goes the other way.

On October 22 2011 18:18 vetinari wrote:
One case? Look, what I am saying is that there is a massive bias in academia (and the press*) towards liberal attitudes. For some reason, liberals/progressive/greens types tend to gravitate towards the academic life, while conservative views are far more prevalent in the private sector. We aren't talking about 5% differences here either. Psychology students are two hundred times more likely to be liberal than conservative, while liberals make up only 20% of the general population.

For this reason, even peer reviewed psychology articles need to be taken with a bucket of salt, whenever the subject matter could possibly be politicised. Researchers have agendas too, and they aren't above using some creative sampling techniques.

For the exact same reason you should look at studies produced by the heritage foundation carefully, take the findings of the soft sciences, (especially the dismal science), very, very carefully. A lot of psychology is a circle jerk. There is a reason it has a reputation almost as bad as homeopathy.

*obviously, fox news goes the other way.

On October 22 2011 18:18 vetinari wrote:
One case? Look, what I am saying is that there is a massive bias in academia (and the press*) towards liberal attitudes. For some reason, liberals/progressive/greens types tend to gravitate towards the academic life, while conservative views are far more prevalent in the private sector. We aren't talking about 5% differences here either. Psychology students are two hundred times more likely to be liberal than conservative, while liberals make up only 20% of the general population.

For this reason, even peer reviewed psychology articles need to be taken with a bucket of salt, whenever the subject matter could possibly be politicised. Researchers have agendas too, and they aren't above using some creative sampling techniques.

For the exact same reason you should look at studies produced by the heritage foundation carefully, take the findings of the soft sciences, (especially the dismal science), very, very carefully. A lot of psychology is a circle jerk. There is a reason it has a reputation almost as bad as homeopathy.

*obviously, fox news goes the other way.

On October 22 2011 18:32 Evil_Monkey_ wrote:

I competely agree with what you said and it's nice to finally get a little bit of support, instead of all the: 'you're stupid because you don't share my point of view' attitude I've been getting.

On October 21 2011 06:36 Darkalbino wrote:
While this story is highly speculative, it surprises me that Australia would consider becoming so progressive.

Obviously, I am for gay marriage. Its not an issue of religous right or wrong, its an issue of freedom or lack thereof.

Australia is a bigoted, homophobic country and I'll be surprised if this doesn't receive major backlash from mainstream news websites (seeing as how anti labor news limited is)

While Australia is really quite behind in regard to its other policies (immigration, carbon, education) it does look to be moving forward in both a more humanitarian and logical direction (mainly because it can't pass its own legislation).

Any way, I am yet to see an Australian politics thread. So feel free to discuss both the main article and any other issues.

On October 22 2011 18:47 Evil_Monkey_ wrote:
http://www.narth.com/docs/whitehead.html

Going on the logic that many people have displayed in this thread. I could brand 'homosexuality' as a 'mental illness' because there's a body of work to support it.

Would I do that? No

Why? Because it's debatable and I personally don't believe it to be correct.

People are allowed an opinion on subjects and a so called 'body of work' doesn't give you the right to define other peoples opinions, that's called facism.

I believe with soft sciences or pseudo sciences like psychology and psychiatry that you can make surveys and research to back up all sorts of things up and likewise do research that would contradict your findings in the same field.

On October 22 2011 17:06 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +Really? What about that vaccine ----> autism study which caused en entire generation of British neonates to not receive the MMR? Wasn't that peer reviewed and cited? To my understanding it was even in a reputable journal. Science isn't as powerful as you think my friend
Medicine is a perfect example: What we think to be "right" at the moment, will almost all be "wrong" within 20 years. Life-long learning for a doctor sucks, but that's that

On October 22 2011 18:34 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Love the "bucket of salt" analogy. : ))) and I 100% agree. Psychology a priori rules out any kind of conservative thinking (any mention of God is only in ridicule). Ya - bucket of salt for all psych/social sciences imo. Also another bucket of salt for pharmaceutical related subjects $$$$$$$ is involved eh

On October 22 2011 19:06 27power wrote:

I am sorry but i am an Australian and i find this highly offensive. Australia is not a "bigoted, homophobic country" not by a long shot. there are bigots and homophobic people here but to state that it is worse than other countries is foolish. all countries have their bigots and homophobes and racists and criminals and scum. That however does not make the country such.

Australia's education policies are not "quite behind" at all and our immigration is in the shitter because we want to have our cake and eat it too. Our carbon policies are at the moment progressive. The new controversial carbon tax for example is hardly innovative but it is also not "quite behind"

As for mainstream media being liberal biased i will not disagree. That does not however mean that the rights to marriage for homosexuals is going to be rubbished. To be honest media attempts to appear progressive to a fault. The issues (non religious and homophobic) of gay marriage will probably not be entered into by mainstream media. I can almost guarantee that the media will strongly back the movement as i believe they should.

And just so we are clear whilst i may disagree with all of the issues against gay marriage that i have seen so far, i am also not going to say that some people may not have some legitimate concerns. I am not educated enough to make claims that all those concerns are rubbish and i very highly doubt that anyone is seeing as we have "professionals" on both sides of the argument for things such as adoption.