"To encourage participation in the survey, respondents were claimed to have been given cash payments to enroll, to refer family and friends, and to complete multiple surveys."For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
-- Marcia McNutt, Science editor-in-chief
'Gay Marriage' Not Favored in Polls, Only in Court
Poll Shows Americans NOT For 'Gay Marriage' or Anal Sex
Almost No Americans Want a 'Homosexual Marriage'
Federal Government Survey Finds Only 1.6% are Homosexual
Media Admit Propaganda Overstating Gay Population
-- From "Science journal retracts fraudulent study on same-sex marriage" by Nick Gass, Politico 5/28/15
Following weeks of academic scrutiny, Science magazine is retracting an article it published five months ago on a study that claimed people’s minds can be changed about same-sex marriage after a brief conversation with someone who is gay.
Science said that the attorney for Michael LaCour, the UCLA graduate student who was the paper’s lead author, told the publication that he made false claims about the study, including misrepresenting survey incentives and sponsors.
Columbia political science professor Donald Green, who was the other author of the study, has already published his own retraction of the article.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Study on Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage Is Retracted by a Scientific Journal" by Benedict Carey, New York Times 5/28/15
The study, published by the journal Science in December, came under question this month when a pair of graduate students trying to follow up on the work found evidence that the data had been misrepresented.
The study’s senior author, Donald P. Green, a prominent political scientist at Columbia University, asked that the study be retracted last week, after his co-author, Michael J. LaCour, a graduate student in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, declined to furnish the raw data he had used to reach his conclusions.
The students who flagged possible problems with the research, Joshua Kalla and David Broockman, then at the University of California, Berkeley, had tried to conduct their own version of the original study.
They asked canvassers with a personal stake in a contentious gay rights issue to try to sway voters’ opinions. But the researchers could not get the same level of participation from voters that Mr. LaCour had reported.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Science magazine retracts widely cited article on voters' gay rights views" posted at FoxNews.com 5/29/15
The [Science] article received widespread news coverage from most major outlets, including The Associated Press, The New York Times and the Washington Post.
The article detailed a study which concluded that openly gay canvassers were far more effective than straight canvassers in shifting voters’ views toward support for same-sex marriage.
The study claimed that opinion changes produced by the straight canvassers tended to fade within a few weeks and those voters reverted to their previous, less favorable views of same-sex marriage. It said that the changes in viewpoints produced by the gay canvassers persisted nine months later.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Retraction of gay marriage study leaves L.A. canvassers feeling jilted" by Eryn Brown and Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times 5/28/15
As national mentoring coordinator at the Los Angeles LGBT Center's Leadership Lab, [Laura Gardiner] and her colleagues had toiled to train 1,000 volunteers who had fanned out across Los Angeles and beyond, lobbying voters in precincts that had cast ballots against gay rights [in the 2008 Proposition 8 referendum].
The idea was to push back against prejudice, house by house — and over the years, the group's internal evaluations indicated, the Leadership Lab had gotten quite good at changing voter minds.
The study had excited readers well beyond Gardiner's circle for its surprising conclusion that a single doorstep chat could prompt a skeptic to embrace marriage equality. It even reported a “spillover” effect that extended to household members who didn't talk to canvassers.
Although the findings contradicted a body of research that said firmly held opinions weren't easily swayed by lobbying and political advertising, they seemed to confirm an idea people were happy to embrace — that honest conversation and open minds could bring people together.
The [now-fraudulent] study results purported to show that after speaking with canvassers, people were more inclined to support same-sex marriage, an increase from 39% to 47%. One year later, support for gay marriage was 14 percentage points higher among people who were lobbied by a gay person and 3 percentage points higher among those who were canvassed by a straight person, the study said.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
So, what do Americans really say?
Most Americans Say Gay Men Untrustworthy with Boys
Most Americans Support Prayer in School, Poll Shows
Gallup Poll: Americans Want Abortion Laws Changed
Pew Research: Most Americans Reject Godless Theory of Evolution
Is President Obama a Christian? No, Say Two-Thirds of Americans
