A scientist who sits on the board of a tobacco company, and who publishes a study that finds tobacco to be perfectly harmless, will have his or her study treated with extra skepticism, owing to their study’s inevitable bias. If the scientist fails to disclose their conflict of interest, they’ll be immediately ostracized from the scientific community. A failure to disclose a conflict of interest is an affront if not a direct attack on the credibility of science itself. It is unacceptable.
The author of this post, tailcalled, is self-admittedly autogynephilic. (See: https://surveyanon.wordpress.com/about/). Whatever pretenses of scientific merit his study and his findings may have, he failed to disclose his conflict of interest when presenting his results. He has demonstrated gross scientific negligence.
If police launch an internal investigation and find themselves blameless, we roll our eyes. If an autogynephilic man launches a study on autogynephlia, and he finds himself free of socially undesirable traits, we as rationalists… accept his favorable findings about himself without skepticism? God, I hope not.
tailcalled inventing his own questions smelled a little funny. It’s a rudimentary element of epistemology to know that, despite your best efforts to remain impartial, you will always be interpreting the world around you with your thumb on the scale in your own favor. This is why we go to great lengths to create double-blind studies.
The fact that tailcalled, and to a lesser extent Scott Alexander (who publicized and brought significant attention to tailcalled results), failed to disclose tailcalled’s conflict of interest is shameful. The truth, and the methods to arrive at the truth, must be held sacrosanct at lesswrong, or we’re wasting our time.
Scott Alexander can do better, and tailcalled should apologize.
Additionally, all publications surrounding tailcalled results should be amended with a disclosure. If you’re pissed that you had to scroll to the bottom of this post to find out that tailcalled is himself autogynephilic and on HRT, you should be.
Also, since you consider people’s positionality important, what is your relationship to this? You write like an HSTS attempting to sound scientific; is that true, and if so, why didn’t you disclose that you were HSTS? If you are not HSTS, what is your background? Sex, trans status, autogynephilia, sexual orientation, political views?
If an autogynephilic man launches a study on autogynephlia, and he finds himself free of socially undesirable traits, we as rationalists… accept his favorable findings about himself without skepticism? God, I hope not.
What study and socially undesirable traits do you have in mind?
The author of this post, tailcalled, is self-admittedly autogynephilic. (See: https://surveyanon.wordpress.com/about/). Whatever pretenses of scientific merit his study and his findings may have, he failed to disclose his conflict of interest when presenting his results. He has demonstrated gross scientific negligence.
Your argument that I am self-admittedly autogynephilic is a link to a page on my research blog where I admit to being autogynephilic. This seems like disclosure to me? Is there any place where you would like me to add additional disclosure?
tailcalled inventing his own questions smelled a little funny. It’s a rudimentary element of epistemology to know that, despite your best efforts to remain impartial, you will always be interpreting the world around you with your thumb on the scale in your own favor. This is why we go to great lengths to create double-blind studies.
If you have issues with my questions, I would be open to adding questions that you prefer so we can compare the results of them. Beyond the case of questions, unlike Blanchardians I generally make my data available, so if you have issues with the analyses/interpretations, I would be ready to share my data with you so you can give your own interpretations to it.
The fact that tailcalled, and to a lesser extent Scott Alexander (who publicized and brought significant attention to tailcalled results), failed to disclose tailcalled’s conflict of interest is shameful. The truth, and the methods to arrive at the truth, must be held sacrosanct at lesswrong, or we’re wasting our time.
Scott Alexander did not publish my results. Scott Alexander did his own study using methods that deviated from my recommendations in order to produce his own results.
Also, insofar as Scott Alexander has an error here, I think it is broader than not representing my situation fully. I can’t even get Scott Alexander to pay enough attention to my position to realize that I think autogynephilia matters for trans topics and that autogynephilia in cis women doesn’t change that fact. Scott Alexander probably should do better to disclose that he is basically not paying attention to this stuff.
Additionally, all publications surrounding tailcalled results should be amended with a disclosure. If you’re pissed that you had to scroll to the bottom of this post to find out that tailcalled is himself autogynephilic and on HRT, you should be.
I can add a disclosure of this to this post. Are there any other posts where you think it matters?
For the purpose of reading my tone, I’m grateful that you added the disclosure. My priors have been adjusted, and you’re alright in my book.
(I’ve been welcomed into the LessWrong community, after my high effort comment, with negative karma and the inability to even vote, but I’d otherwise give you an upvote.)
I think disclosures of conflicts of interest are important when you’re authoritatively presenting conclusions, or when you’re authoritatively rebutting scientific conclusions. We don’t need to know our personal details when we’re just talking to each other, and not standing on a metaphorical stage making proclamations. Nevertheless, to reciprocate, I’m not a HSTS. (For the audience, HSTS = homosexual transsexual, a transwoman who is attracted to men. For further context, sometimes HSTS’s believe that AGP’s aren’t “true” transsexuals, hence tailcalled’s guess.)
I’m a straight, cis-male, registered Democrat. In terms of bias, I think Blanchard is brilliant; he’s poured much of his life into this stuff, and I don’t like people glibly taking shots at his work. Regardless of what Twitter would have you believe, Blanchard is highly respected in the scientific community.
I am suggesting that there is a conflict of interest that hasn’t been disclosed for this study. Scott Alexander apparently didn’t work with you for the analysis/conclusion, so the bias may be strictly limited to the methods: the questions on the survey. (Unless, as I’ve read, Scott Alexander is romantically involved with a trans person, which makes the whole study highly suspect.)
I believe you in that you had little to do with it, other than coming up with the AGP questions. Nevertheless, in science, if you believe that a study is erroneous, it is standard to request that your name be removed from authorship, so as to not tar your career. The extent to which we stray from that standard is the extent to which our community loses credibility.
What … socially undesirable traits do you have in mind?
Everyday sexualities, like homosexuality or fetishes like BDSM, are increasingly acceptable to society. Strange sexualities, however, make even progressives uncomfortable. Adult diaper people, for instance, struggle to find friends. But if your sexuality is normal, if most humans have a considerable degree of AGP, (as is concluded by the study that bears your name), then you can expect to be embraced in the kumbaya circle of circle. We all have AGP, let’s hold hands!
On the other hand, if AGP is as Blanchard and Bailey understand it, then you’re in for (greater) social difficulty. Blanchard and Bailey believe that AGP is analogous to apotemnophilics, also called “transabled” people. These folks are aroused by the idea of getting their limbs amputated. If Blanchard and Bailey are correct, both AGP’s and apotemnophilics are consequences of an erotic target location error (ETLE).
Foot fetishists are another example of ETLE, and they’re probably the most socially accepted ETLE. Many of us don’t care if a friend has a foot thing, as long as he keeps it to himself and doesn’t publicly ogle feet. Transabled people, meanwhile, are freaky to almost all of us. Having a sexual desire to chop off parts of your body would fit in a horror movie: an unacceptable sexuality to most.
I think AGP people would fall somewhere between foot fetishists and transabled people, were Blanchard AGP theory widely understood and accepted as valid.
Thus, what’s on the table: whether your sexuality is normal or an oddity. And consequently, whether your sexuality is acceptable or highly uncomfortable. The latter would push you (deeper) into the social margins.
The specter of ostracization is a powerful source of bias — a lot is at stake for you! I believe that you have scientific integrity, but as I said in my previous comment, the odds are stacked against you on this topic. Your mind is going to try to find a way to believe the favorable thing and to reject the highly unfavorable thing. To compensate for that inevitable bias, the standards of your work in the field must be higher. It’s a pragmatic consideration, not a judgmental one (as long as disclosures are provided!)
I cannot comment on flaws in your questions, as I’m not an expert in the field. I can tell you, though, that Bailey is a warm guy, and he’s more accessible than you might expect. If Scott Alexander has slighted you, and it sounds like he has, you could probably steal his thunder. Beat him to a follow-up study done in conjunction with Bailey. I think Bailey might be happy for the chance to make a scientific convert.
For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you got a shitty set of cards in the sexuality department. I hope you’re able to find a satisfying way to get your kicks and be happy.
(I’ve been welcomed into the LessWrong community, after my high effort comment, with negative karma and the inability to even vote, but I’d otherwise give you an upvote.)
Your original comment may have been high effort, but it was high effort put into covering up the overall badness of the comment. It contained no substantive object-level argument, and just meta-level sneering about “bias”.
I think disclosures of conflicts of interest are important when you’re authoritatively presenting conclusions, or when you’re authoritatively rebutting scientific conclusions. We don’t need to know our personal details when we’re just talking to each other, and not standing on a metaphorical stage making proclamations.
Why? It sounds to me like you have some special model for something “authoritative” that isn’t as central to my model? Can you expand?
My view is that if you think there is something wrong with my rebuttal, you can just criticize it and show what’s wrong, so there’s not much need to worry about bias.
For further context, sometimes HSTS’s believe that AGP’s aren’t “true” transsexuals, hence tailcalled’s guess.
(My guess was more based on having seen one or two HSTSs use grammatical constructions like “tailcalled results”, and on some HSTS’s primary reaction to a lot of this discourse being to ignore object-level arguments and just make fun of their interlocutors for being AGP.)
I’m a straight, cis-male, registered Democrat. In terms of bias, I think Blanchard is brilliant; he’s poured much of his life into this stuff, and I don’t like people glibly taking shots at his work.
Something about this doesn’t add up to me. How does a person like this get deeply involved with Blanchard? Parent of gender dysphoric kid? Some supersexual/TiA type thing? Via racism? Secretly AGP?
I am suggesting that there is a conflict of interest that hasn’t been disclosed for this study. Scott Alexander apparently didn’t work with you for the analysis/conclusion, so the bias may be strictly limited to the methods: the questions on the survey.
At this point it feels like you’re advocating severe cancel culture. This isn’t “be extra skeptical about scientists who sit on the board of a tobacco company”, it’s “be extra skeptical about scientists who have talked with tobacco companies about research”. It’s like you are treating the mere act of receiving information from AGPs as a danger.
I believe you in that you had little to do with it, other than coming up with the AGP questions. Nevertheless, in science, if you believe that a study is erroneous, it is standard to request that your name be removed from authorship, so as to not tar your career. The extent to which we stray from that standard is the extent to which our community loses credibility.
I mean first of all, this is literally false; I’ve read a bunch of social science and discussions between social scientists, and they often admit to changing their minds without retracting the papers. (This isn’t the only literally false thing you’ve said. The points about science requiring sexual minorities who study their sexual interests to disclose and having extra high standards towards their research is incorrect, at least after the influence of wokeness, where the perception is often reversed, that it is majorities who are suspicious.)
[A giant block of text that basically boils down to implying that it is only OK to be AGP if a lot of other people are AGP, and that otherwise Some People You Know About are going to ostracize me from society, and therefore I would be biased to avoid ostracism and thus not credible.]
First, I reject the claim that common=OK. Second, I have regularly argued against most people being AGP, e.g. Contra Serano and Lehmiller on Autogynephilia Prevalence. Third, I think it is gaslighty (in a bad way) for Society to make bullshit dismissals of my work (as Bailey does) and then threaten me with ostracism (as you are doing) and then argue that I only disagree because I am irrationally biased. Just make an actual good object-level argument.
If Scott Alexander has slighted you, and it sounds like he has, you could probably steal his thunder.
Scott Alexander hasn’t really slighted me that much, he’s just inattentive. I can just correct him in the comments and in discussions.
I cannot comment on flaws in your questions, as I’m not an expert in the field. I can tell you, though, that Bailey is a warm guy, and he’s more accessible than you might expect. [...] I think Bailey might be happy for the chance to make a scientific convert.
I used to moderate a subreddit about Blanchardianism, often focused on my research, and this lead to Michael Bailey adding me to SEXNET, and sometimes sharing some research work with me. However, when I asked questions I generally found him dismissive, but to some extent I assumed that at least sometimes he had some deeper reasons that he was hinting at. At the time I was talking a lot about autoandrophilia, bringing it up as an alternate model to ROGD, and doing research partly based on my own ideas and partly inspired by various critiques and takes by Bailey & co. A lot of my research was pretty bad, and some of the things I said at the time were over the line, but mostly Bailey didn’t seem to mind.
A major turning point came with Meta-attraction cannot account for all autogynephiles’ interest in men, where I found a major claim made by Blanchardianism to be false. Bailey’s response was superficially encouraging, saying that it is good I am doing the work and claiming that he’d be willing to test subjects phallometrically for me if I send them to his lab, but ultimately his response was also dismissive, saying that it is not believable because the androphilic AGPs probably lied about their arousal, and claiming my title is far too certain about the result.
Anyway, that this major claim about meta-attraction was wrong reduced my trust in Blanchardians, and so I went in reinvestigating some claims that I had been too quick to accept, leading to a stream of critical posts, such as:
Furthermore, gradually throughout the time, I had been leveling up my psychometrics, statistics and causal inference skills.
Eventually, it reached the point where we had some disagreements where I had unambiguous proof that I was right. However, he kept writing brief dismissals, despite me writing pages of explanation of the statistics as well as simulation studies showing the result. I took this as proof that he was bullshitting. (Unfortunately it was about a secret project that I have promised not to tell anyone the details about, so I can’t give you the proof yet. He is supposedly gonna publish soon though, and I plan on writing up my proof immediately after that.)
Michael Bailey has a tendency to complain about ideological bias and insist that people should be truthseekers like him. To try to pressure him into not bullshitting, I started responding to such cases by calling him out on his bullshit. I think this was very embarrassing/annoying for him, and he demanded I stopped.
I accepted to pause the public comments on him while we sorted out who was in the right or in the wrong, but I had interpreted the pause to not cover a semi-private discord server with some of my friends, so I discussed what was happening with people in there. But he had someone in the discord server who sent him the discussion, and he decided I had broken our deal and therefore banned/blocked me wherever he could.
This also lead to him cancelling the previous promise about being willing to physiologically test putative androphilic AGPs.
Later, in response to Michael Bailey’s critiques of my items, Scott Alexander suggested that Bailey and I should do an adversarial collaboration to evaluate my items. I explained that I wasn’t totally opposed to it, but it would be hard because we can’t stand each other because I believe that discussions should be founded on rational argument and justifiable evidence, while Bailey believes they should be founded on civility. Bailey declined, on the basis that he didn’t like me because I questioned his integrity as a scientist, and suggested to Scott Alexander that I might have a Cluster B personality disorder.
(I don’t have a Cluster B personality disorder, at least not in the sense that personality disorders are usually defined, of being enduring, unstoppable, pervasive maladaptive patterns of behavior. Yes I have a conflict with Michael Bailey that I have fanned into a bunch of drama, which is superficially like Cluster B, but it is not pervasive as it is limited to Michael Bailey and maybe some adjacent trans/research-topics, and it is not unstoppable as I could choose to stop whenever I want.)
So no, it is not a good idea to work with Michael Bailey. His reasoning procedure seems to consist of pointing out that progressive stuff doesn’t at up, vaguely gesturing that he knows some deep truths, and then dismissing those who have results that contradict his preconceptions. He does not seem to engage in rational argument.
Apparently both Bailey and I agree about your bias. Accounting for (and making disclosures of conflict of interest about) biases isn’t “meta-level sneering”. It’s a fundamental part of science.
Per Disclosure of conflict of interest in scientific publications (2020):
Taking appropriate measures to avoid bias and maintain transparency in the execution, reporting, and publication process improves scientific objectivity, integrity, and credibility of research findings.
....
Internationally, most scientific journals (over 90%) have adopted policies that mandate “disclosure of COI for authors”
Failing to disclose COI’s relegates research to the bottom 10% of scientific publications: shit-tier, quack-adjacent “science”. (And yes, wokeness / Social Justice Fundamentalism has infected that bottom 10% of shit-tier publications, and yes, it’s cancerously eating up more of the social sciences. As you’ve suggested, many circles in social science won’t mind if you’re publishing papers that surreptitiously promote your own agenda. What they’re engaged in is no longer science.)
So, if you care about science, and you’re not just play-acting at it, then I’m afraid that you have to care about bias.
Unrelatedly, I’m now downvoted to oblivion, and LessWrong has elected to time-limit my ability to make comments. I’ve been issued a dunce cap and put in the corner. This treatment is rather beneath my sense of my own dignity, so this is my last message here.
Foreign body removed: purification of the echo chamber complete.
Accounting for (and making disclosures of conflict of interest about) biases isn’t “meta-level sneering”. It’s a fundamental part of science.
Studying a subject is the most important part of science. If a research area degenerates into pure accusations of bias and nonsense arguments (as distinct things; yes I agree that bias can be relevant as long as it’s not the only topic), then it is pretty worthless.
I don’t know why she didn’t disclose. One possibility is that the disclosure policy doesn’t obligate her to. I’m not sure though as it was quite vague:
Authors are requested to disclose interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work. Disclosure of interests provides a complete and transparent process and helps readers form their own judgments of potential bias. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate.
[...]
Interests that should be considered and disclosed but are not limited to the following:
Funding: Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number) and/or research support (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia, and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript.
Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript. This includes multiple affiliations (if applicable).
Financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies (including holdings of spouse and/or children) that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication of this manuscript.
It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial interest becomes significant, any such figure is necessarily arbitrary, so one possible practical guideline is the following: “Any undeclared financial interest that could embarrass the author were it to become publicly known after the work was published.”
Non-financial interests: In addition, authors are requested to disclose interests that go beyond financial interests that could impart bias on the work submitted for publication such as professional interests, personal relationships or personal beliefs (amongst others). Examples include, but are not limited to: position on editorial board, advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships; writing and/or consulting for educational purposes; expert witness; mentoring relations; and so forth.
Primary research articles require a disclosure statement. Review articles present an expert synthesis of evidence and may be treated as an authoritative work on a subject. Review articles therefore require a disclosure statement. Other article types such as editorials, book reviews, comments (amongst others) may, dependent on their content, require a disclosure statement. If you are unclear whether your article type requires a disclosure statement, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.
Please note that, in addition to the above requirements, funding information (given that funding is a potential competing interest (as mentioned above)) needs to be disclosed upon submission of the manuscript in the peer review system. This information will automatically be added to the Record of CrossMark, however it is not added to the manuscript itself. Under ‘summary of requirements’ (see below) funding information should be included in the ‘Declarations’ section.
I don’t see any explicit mention of demographic membership, though, so probably it isn’t required?
But all of your comments currently have positive karma? (The left number is karma; the right number is agree/disagree voting, which exists precisely to express disagreement without it being a rebuke.)
A scientist who sits on the board of a tobacco company, and who publishes a study that finds tobacco to be perfectly harmless, will have his or her study treated with extra skepticism, owing to their study’s inevitable bias. If the scientist fails to disclose their conflict of interest, they’ll be immediately ostracized from the scientific community. A failure to disclose a conflict of interest is an affront if not a direct attack on the credibility of science itself. It is unacceptable.
The author of this post, tailcalled, is self-admittedly autogynephilic. (See: https://surveyanon.wordpress.com/about/). Whatever pretenses of scientific merit his study and his findings may have, he failed to disclose his conflict of interest when presenting his results. He has demonstrated gross scientific negligence.
If police launch an internal investigation and find themselves blameless, we roll our eyes. If an autogynephilic man launches a study on autogynephlia, and he finds himself free of socially undesirable traits, we as rationalists… accept his favorable findings about himself without skepticism? God, I hope not.
tailcalled inventing his own questions smelled a little funny. It’s a rudimentary element of epistemology to know that, despite your best efforts to remain impartial, you will always be interpreting the world around you with your thumb on the scale in your own favor. This is why we go to great lengths to create double-blind studies.
The fact that tailcalled, and to a lesser extent Scott Alexander (who publicized and brought significant attention to tailcalled results), failed to disclose tailcalled’s conflict of interest is shameful. The truth, and the methods to arrive at the truth, must be held sacrosanct at lesswrong, or we’re wasting our time.
Scott Alexander can do better, and tailcalled should apologize.
Additionally, all publications surrounding tailcalled results should be amended with a disclosure. If you’re pissed that you had to scroll to the bottom of this post to find out that tailcalled is himself autogynephilic and on HRT, you should be.
Added disclosure that I am autogynephilic to the beginning of my post.
Also, since you consider people’s positionality important, what is your relationship to this? You write like an HSTS attempting to sound scientific; is that true, and if so, why didn’t you disclose that you were HSTS? If you are not HSTS, what is your background? Sex, trans status, autogynephilia, sexual orientation, political views?
What study and socially undesirable traits do you have in mind?
Your argument that I am self-admittedly autogynephilic is a link to a page on my research blog where I admit to being autogynephilic. This seems like disclosure to me? Is there any place where you would like me to add additional disclosure?
If you have issues with my questions, I would be open to adding questions that you prefer so we can compare the results of them. Beyond the case of questions, unlike Blanchardians I generally make my data available, so if you have issues with the analyses/interpretations, I would be ready to share my data with you so you can give your own interpretations to it.
Scott Alexander did not publish my results. Scott Alexander did his own study using methods that deviated from my recommendations in order to produce his own results.
Also, insofar as Scott Alexander has an error here, I think it is broader than not representing my situation fully. I can’t even get Scott Alexander to pay enough attention to my position to realize that I think autogynephilia matters for trans topics and that autogynephilia in cis women doesn’t change that fact. Scott Alexander probably should do better to disclose that he is basically not paying attention to this stuff.
I can add a disclosure of this to this post. Are there any other posts where you think it matters?
For the purpose of reading my tone, I’m grateful that you added the disclosure. My priors have been adjusted, and you’re alright in my book.
(I’ve been welcomed into the LessWrong community, after my high effort comment, with negative karma and the inability to even vote, but I’d otherwise give you an upvote.)
I think disclosures of conflicts of interest are important when you’re authoritatively presenting conclusions, or when you’re authoritatively rebutting scientific conclusions. We don’t need to know our personal details when we’re just talking to each other, and not standing on a metaphorical stage making proclamations. Nevertheless, to reciprocate, I’m not a HSTS. (For the audience, HSTS = homosexual transsexual, a transwoman who is attracted to men. For further context, sometimes HSTS’s believe that AGP’s aren’t “true” transsexuals, hence tailcalled’s guess.)
I’m a straight, cis-male, registered Democrat. In terms of bias, I think Blanchard is brilliant; he’s poured much of his life into this stuff, and I don’t like people glibly taking shots at his work. Regardless of what Twitter would have you believe, Blanchard is highly respected in the scientific community.
The following study, for which you are credited, has its conclusion in the title: “Autogenderphilia Is Common And Not Especially Related To Transgender” (https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/02/10/autogenderphilia-is-common-and-not-especially-related-to-transgender)
I am suggesting that there is a conflict of interest that hasn’t been disclosed for this study. Scott Alexander apparently didn’t work with you for the analysis/conclusion, so the bias may be strictly limited to the methods: the questions on the survey. (Unless, as I’ve read, Scott Alexander is romantically involved with a trans person, which makes the whole study highly suspect.)
I believe you in that you had little to do with it, other than coming up with the AGP questions. Nevertheless, in science, if you believe that a study is erroneous, it is standard to request that your name be removed from authorship, so as to not tar your career. The extent to which we stray from that standard is the extent to which our community loses credibility.
Everyday sexualities, like homosexuality or fetishes like BDSM, are increasingly acceptable to society. Strange sexualities, however, make even progressives uncomfortable. Adult diaper people, for instance, struggle to find friends. But if your sexuality is normal, if most humans have a considerable degree of AGP, (as is concluded by the study that bears your name), then you can expect to be embraced in the kumbaya circle of circle. We all have AGP, let’s hold hands!
On the other hand, if AGP is as Blanchard and Bailey understand it, then you’re in for (greater) social difficulty. Blanchard and Bailey believe that AGP is analogous to apotemnophilics, also called “transabled” people. These folks are aroused by the idea of getting their limbs amputated. If Blanchard and Bailey are correct, both AGP’s and apotemnophilics are consequences of an erotic target location error (ETLE).
Foot fetishists are another example of ETLE, and they’re probably the most socially accepted ETLE. Many of us don’t care if a friend has a foot thing, as long as he keeps it to himself and doesn’t publicly ogle feet. Transabled people, meanwhile, are freaky to almost all of us. Having a sexual desire to chop off parts of your body would fit in a horror movie: an unacceptable sexuality to most.
I think AGP people would fall somewhere between foot fetishists and transabled people, were Blanchard AGP theory widely understood and accepted as valid.
Thus, what’s on the table: whether your sexuality is normal or an oddity. And consequently, whether your sexuality is acceptable or highly uncomfortable. The latter would push you (deeper) into the social margins.
The specter of ostracization is a powerful source of bias — a lot is at stake for you! I believe that you have scientific integrity, but as I said in my previous comment, the odds are stacked against you on this topic. Your mind is going to try to find a way to believe the favorable thing and to reject the highly unfavorable thing. To compensate for that inevitable bias, the standards of your work in the field must be higher. It’s a pragmatic consideration, not a judgmental one (as long as disclosures are provided!)
I cannot comment on flaws in your questions, as I’m not an expert in the field. I can tell you, though, that Bailey is a warm guy, and he’s more accessible than you might expect. If Scott Alexander has slighted you, and it sounds like he has, you could probably steal his thunder. Beat him to a follow-up study done in conjunction with Bailey. I think Bailey might be happy for the chance to make a scientific convert.
For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you got a shitty set of cards in the sexuality department. I hope you’re able to find a satisfying way to get your kicks and be happy.
Your original comment may have been high effort, but it was high effort put into covering up the overall badness of the comment. It contained no substantive object-level argument, and just meta-level sneering about “bias”.
Why? It sounds to me like you have some special model for something “authoritative” that isn’t as central to my model? Can you expand?
My view is that if you think there is something wrong with my rebuttal, you can just criticize it and show what’s wrong, so there’s not much need to worry about bias.
(My guess was more based on having seen one or two HSTSs use grammatical constructions like “tailcalled results”, and on some HSTS’s primary reaction to a lot of this discourse being to ignore object-level arguments and just make fun of their interlocutors for being AGP.)
Something about this doesn’t add up to me. How does a person like this get deeply involved with Blanchard? Parent of gender dysphoric kid? Some supersexual/TiA type thing? Via racism? Secretly AGP?
At this point it feels like you’re advocating severe cancel culture. This isn’t “be extra skeptical about scientists who sit on the board of a tobacco company”, it’s “be extra skeptical about scientists who have talked with tobacco companies about research”. It’s like you are treating the mere act of receiving information from AGPs as a danger.
I mean first of all, this is literally false; I’ve read a bunch of social science and discussions between social scientists, and they often admit to changing their minds without retracting the papers. (This isn’t the only literally false thing you’ve said. The points about science requiring sexual minorities who study their sexual interests to disclose and having extra high standards towards their research is incorrect, at least after the influence of wokeness, where the perception is often reversed, that it is majorities who are suspicious.)
First, I reject the claim that common=OK. Second, I have regularly argued against most people being AGP, e.g. Contra Serano and Lehmiller on Autogynephilia Prevalence. Third, I think it is gaslighty (in a bad way) for Society to make bullshit dismissals of my work (as Bailey does) and then threaten me with ostracism (as you are doing) and then argue that I only disagree because I am irrationally biased. Just make an actual good object-level argument.
Scott Alexander hasn’t really slighted me that much, he’s just inattentive. I can just correct him in the comments and in discussions.
I used to moderate a subreddit about Blanchardianism, often focused on my research, and this lead to Michael Bailey adding me to SEXNET, and sometimes sharing some research work with me. However, when I asked questions I generally found him dismissive, but to some extent I assumed that at least sometimes he had some deeper reasons that he was hinting at. At the time I was talking a lot about autoandrophilia, bringing it up as an alternate model to ROGD, and doing research partly based on my own ideas and partly inspired by various critiques and takes by Bailey & co. A lot of my research was pretty bad, and some of the things I said at the time were over the line, but mostly Bailey didn’t seem to mind.
A major turning point came with Meta-attraction cannot account for all autogynephiles’ interest in men, where I found a major claim made by Blanchardianism to be false. Bailey’s response was superficially encouraging, saying that it is good I am doing the work and claiming that he’d be willing to test subjects phallometrically for me if I send them to his lab, but ultimately his response was also dismissive, saying that it is not believable because the androphilic AGPs probably lied about their arousal, and claiming my title is far too certain about the result.
At the time he also made statements like this about me:
Anyway, that this major claim about meta-attraction was wrong reduced my trust in Blanchardians, and so I went in reinvestigating some claims that I had been too quick to accept, leading to a stream of critical posts, such as:
The mathematical consequences of a toy model of gender transition
Age of onset as the origin of discrete types of gender dysphoria?
Contra Blanchard and Dreger on Autogynephilia in Cis Women
Contra James Cantor on desistance
Controlling for the general factor of paraphilia / Autogynephilia and masochism: A tale of two assessment biases
Furthermore, gradually throughout the time, I had been leveling up my psychometrics, statistics and causal inference skills.
Eventually, it reached the point where we had some disagreements where I had unambiguous proof that I was right. However, he kept writing brief dismissals, despite me writing pages of explanation of the statistics as well as simulation studies showing the result. I took this as proof that he was bullshitting. (Unfortunately it was about a secret project that I have promised not to tell anyone the details about, so I can’t give you the proof yet. He is supposedly gonna publish soon though, and I plan on writing up my proof immediately after that.)
Michael Bailey has a tendency to complain about ideological bias and insist that people should be truthseekers like him. To try to pressure him into not bullshitting, I started responding to such cases by calling him out on his bullshit. I think this was very embarrassing/annoying for him, and he demanded I stopped.
I accepted to pause the public comments on him while we sorted out who was in the right or in the wrong, but I had interpreted the pause to not cover a semi-private discord server with some of my friends, so I discussed what was happening with people in there. But he had someone in the discord server who sent him the discussion, and he decided I had broken our deal and therefore banned/blocked me wherever he could.
This also lead to him cancelling the previous promise about being willing to physiologically test putative androphilic AGPs.
Later, in response to Michael Bailey’s critiques of my items, Scott Alexander suggested that Bailey and I should do an adversarial collaboration to evaluate my items. I explained that I wasn’t totally opposed to it, but it would be hard because we can’t stand each other because I believe that discussions should be founded on rational argument and justifiable evidence, while Bailey believes they should be founded on civility. Bailey declined, on the basis that he didn’t like me because I questioned his integrity as a scientist, and suggested to Scott Alexander that I might have a Cluster B personality disorder.
(I don’t have a Cluster B personality disorder, at least not in the sense that personality disorders are usually defined, of being enduring, unstoppable, pervasive maladaptive patterns of behavior. Yes I have a conflict with Michael Bailey that I have fanned into a bunch of drama, which is superficially like Cluster B, but it is not pervasive as it is limited to Michael Bailey and maybe some adjacent trans/research-topics, and it is not unstoppable as I could choose to stop whenever I want.)
So no, it is not a good idea to work with Michael Bailey. His reasoning procedure seems to consist of pointing out that progressive stuff doesn’t at up, vaguely gesturing that he knows some deep truths, and then dismissing those who have results that contradict his preconceptions. He does not seem to engage in rational argument.
Apparently both Bailey and I agree about your bias. Accounting for (and making disclosures of conflict of interest about) biases isn’t “meta-level sneering”. It’s a fundamental part of science.
Per Disclosure of conflict of interest in scientific publications (2020):
Failing to disclose COI’s relegates research to the bottom 10% of scientific publications: shit-tier, quack-adjacent “science”. (And yes, wokeness / Social Justice Fundamentalism has infected that bottom 10% of shit-tier publications, and yes, it’s cancerously eating up more of the social sciences. As you’ve suggested, many circles in social science won’t mind if you’re publishing papers that surreptitiously promote your own agenda. What they’re engaged in is no longer science.)
Outside of woke corruption, and for deeper context, modern science cares about bias, because it’s been repeatedly burned by it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_experiment
So, if you care about science, and you’re not just play-acting at it, then I’m afraid that you have to care about bias.
Unrelatedly, I’m now downvoted to oblivion, and LessWrong has elected to time-limit my ability to make comments. I’ve been issued a dunce cap and put in the corner. This treatment is rather beneath my sense of my own dignity, so this is my last message here.
Foreign body removed: purification of the echo chamber complete.
Studying a subject is the most important part of science. If a research area degenerates into pure accusations of bias and nonsense arguments (as distinct things; yes I agree that bias can be relevant as long as it’s not the only topic), then it is pretty worthless.
Let’s take a concrete example of a journal with a conflict of interest disclosure policy, namely Archives of Sexual Behavior, the main journal Blanchardians use. One autogynephilic trans woman who has published papers about autogynephilia in ASB is Anne Lawrence, but I don’t think she tended to declare a conflict of interest. For instance, skimming through Veale’s (2014) Critique of Blanchard’s Typology Was Invalid, I don’t immediately see any dislosures by Lawrence that she is autogynephilic or transgender.
I don’t know why she didn’t disclose. One possibility is that the disclosure policy doesn’t obligate her to. I’m not sure though as it was quite vague:
I don’t see any explicit mention of demographic membership, though, so probably it isn’t required?
But all of your comments currently have positive karma? (The left number is karma; the right number is agree/disagree voting, which exists precisely to express disagreement without it being a rebuke.)