THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCIENCE REPORTING AND SCIENCE!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: mensdaily
Hari Narayan Singh Khalsa
2009-02-20 at 2:38 pm · Filed under blog



One of the biggest targets of feminists' criticism is evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology goes against one of the central tenets of patriarchy theory, that social conditioning drives all or nearly all gender differences in behavior. The feminist blogosphere reacted with predictable (and understandable) irritation to this article citing a study about how women orgasm more with rich men. The perceived insult to women is obvious: women are not attracted to men themselves but to money and status. From Wealthy men give women more orgasms (The Sunday Times 1/18/09):

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.

They found that the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.

“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr. Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research.

He believes the phenomenon is an “evolutionary adaptation” that is hard-wired into women, driving them to select men on the basis of their perceived quality.

The study is certain to prove controversial, suggesting that women are inherently programmed to be gold-diggers.

However, it fits into a wider body of research known as evolutionary psychology which suggests that both men and women are genetically predisposed to ruthlessly exploit each other to achieve the best chances of survival for their genes.

The female orgasm is the focus of much research because it appears to have no reproductive purpose. Women can become pregnant whatever their pleasure levels.

Pollet, and Professor Daniel Nettle, his co-author, believed, however, that the female orgasm is an evolutionary adaptation that drives women to choose and retain high-quality partners.

Feminist reaction to this story has not been merely a reaction to the unfeminist implications of the research; they have also made arguments against the conclusion's validity. The validity of a study is diluted when there are many alternative explanations of data, and feminists have suggested plausible other explanations for this study's results. Rich people are healthier, for one. They are also likely less stressed because they don't worry so much about paying their next round of bills. Stress and ill health are not known to be predictors of good sex.

Those are good points. The problem I see is how most feminists treat evolutionary psychology research as the same as articles on evolutionary psychology in the lay media. Science reporting isn't science—far from it. In fact, I would say it's done almost as much to distort the public's understanding of science as to improve it. XKCD sums it up nicely: it is the difference between quantum teleportation and the Starship Enterprise's transporter room.

This article doesn't mention any of the qualifiers the researchers may have placed on their conclusions—maximum provocation clearly winning out over accuracy. Here, though, is an example of mere sloppy presentation drawing some undeserved ire:

They found that 121 of these women always had orgasms during sex, while 408 more had them “often”. Another 762 “sometimes” orgasm while 243 had them rarely or never. Such figures are similar to those for western countries.

There were of course, several factors involved in such differences but, said Pollet, money was one of the main ones.

Clearly the second paragraph does not follow meaningfully from the first. While the first paragraph enumerates the spectrum of the dependent variable across their test population, it says nothing about how it relates to wealth, the independent variable. The second paragraph is a comment about the independent variable that would have made more sense preceded with statistics about men's wealth's effects on women's orgasms. Instead the paragraph before is a non-sequitur about women's orgasm rate overall.

Since both paragraphs were paraphrased from the researchers separately, we can assume that the juxtaposition of these ideas was done by the news writer, not the scientists themselves. It is ludicrous to think that the authors of the actual study made a claim that wealth and orgasms are related without even showing a correlation. Yet I have seen that argument strongly implied on a feminist blog.

I have not been able to find the study itself, unfortunately. However, there is good indication that the researchers were more thoughtful than the Times Online writers give them credit for being. Another article about the research preserves more nuances. From Why rich men are better in bed: Women have more orgasms with wealthy partners, study finds (Mail Online 1/20/09):

The scientists say the findings could be explained by bias in the study - that women who have frequent orgasms tend to overestimate their partner's income, or that women with 'high powered' partners exaggerate how much they enjoy sex.

'While we cannot rule out reporting bias, we note that the interviews took place away from the respondents' home, without their partner present and with the respondents able to input their responses directly into the computer if they so wished,' Dr. Pollet said.

It is also possible that women who are highly susceptible to orgasms select partners who are wealthy, he said.
He added: 'The third interpretation is that more desirable mates cause women to experience more orgasms,' he said.

So they do admit that there are alternative explanations. I would also add that they haven't controlled for the men's height or handsomeness, which are correlated with wealth. Nor have they controlled for the women's wealth (another observation from the feminists I read). So it is a weak study—not the most robust or valid I have seen, not by a long shot. But perhaps an impetus for further study, and that is a worthy goal in science.

The fact that the researchers themselves have considered alternatives to their conclusions suggests that they really are interested in doing science and not misogynist propaganda. This study has not contributed a lot to the overall body of human knowledge. Nor has it, from what I can tell, presented any misinformation. Leave it to the mainstream media to do that.