APA response to controversial article

["Steve J. Ondersma" <Steve-Ondersma@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ben and fellow researchers:

	The APA has been responding to the fallout regarding the article in
question (Rind, Tromovitch, & Bauserman, 1998, "A Meta-Analytic Examination
of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples, " Psych
Bull 124(1), p. 22-53) for some time now.   Their formal response is
available at: http://www.apa.org/releases/childsexabuse.html

	By my analysis, a few points seem to be important in this debacle.
I'm very interested in the thoughts of others.  

*	In publishing scientific journals in psychology, I believe that the
APA acts more as a newspaper publishing op-ed pieces than as an agency
disseminating its own formal views.  The APA does in fact publish formal
position papers (see above), but does not necessarily endorse the
conclusions of all journal authors.  The rest of the world appears to have a
different view.
*	Challenging assumptions is a legitimate, and in fact necessary,
function in science.  The extent to which this necessity is balanced with
common sense and basic morality is for individual scientists and editors to
decide.  Some do better than others.  
*	Science is a legitimate tool with which to seek answers to questions
regarding relationships between operationally defined variables; it is not a
legitimate tool with which to make conclusions regarding what is or is not
morally acceptable.  
*	Rind et al. go beyond what science can and should ask (i.e., "Is
there really a relationship between child sexual abuse and adult
symptomatology?") to make wholly extra-scientific implications (i.e., sex
with children can be OK).  That is, moral decisions about whether an act is
right or wrong have nothing to do with whether or not scientific studies
show negative consequences.  For example, a person might endeavor to shoot
another; the fact that he misses does not mean that what he did was morally
inconsequential.  Someone might give a 5-year old cocaine; the fact that the
5-year old escapes long-term harm or even enjoys it does not mean that we
should then change our terminology from "child abuse and endangerment" to
"adult-child drug sharing."
*	One can make nearly any relationship between observables disappear
by first controlling for enough associated variables.


	I am troubled by the negative press that the APA and Psychology have
received from this.  I am very interested in others' thoughts.


Steve Ondersma
_______________________________
Steven J. Ondersma, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Research
Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, 3B-3406
Department of Pediatrics
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
940 NE 13th Street
Oklahoma City, OK  73104
Office:  405.271.8858
Fax:  405.271.2931
Web:  http://w3.ouhsc.edu/ccan