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by LatteLazy 1363 days ago
We can argue the validity of people's claims to have changed their orientation back and forth, but the science is in:

>Some of the largest studies report little to no reported change in sexual orientation, and reports of success are unpersuasive due to serious methodological limitations and sometimes major flaws in study designs.

>Evidence of harm associated with conversion therapy outweighs reports of some benefits, such as social support and a sense of belonging. In addition, the reported benefits are common to most forms of talking therapy or support groups and could be provided by other, more affirmative, approaches that mitigate risks of harm.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/conversion-therap...

Oct 2021.

1 comments

Your bias and the bias of the study you cited are painfully obvious and assume a particular point of view as valid while rejecting others. The whole concept of the study is framed in a utilitarian value system. If you had a thousand similar studies you wouldn't proven anything to someone who does not hold to an empirical and utilitarian worldview because the questions that the study is asking are ultimately philosophical, epistemological, and moral. As such these questions transcend the usefulness of observational science. The study is worded in such a way as to sound very thorough but if you look at Appendix 2 you can see that even by empirical standards the evidence they have chosen to consider is slanted to a particular subset of the available data, let alone the anecdotal evidence which surrounds the researchers on all sides.

In other words all you've truly pointed out with this post is that the various members of the UK government have policy goals and that they are willing to use science as a cudgel to achieve their policy goals.