From: perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry)
Subject: Re: A question
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:18:11 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Aug25.080154.308@doc.bmd.trw.com> jbrown@doc.bmd.trw.com writes:
>In article <1992Aug25.043742.14071@news.duc.auburn.edu>, singram@eng.auburn.edu (Scott Ingram) writes:
>> Re: 10% of our population is homosexual.
>
>I seriously doubt that it is more than 2%.

Based on what?  That's a serious question.

>> You mis-interpreted the 1 in 5 ratio... the original poster said that 
>> with any two kids there is a 1 in five chance one is gay. Or, a 1 in 10 
>> chance any single kid is gay.  This is a widely accepted percentage, and 
>> may be much to small. 
>
>It's much too large.
>
>> Where did it come from?  Research on the subject. 
>
>Correct.  But it was *bad* research, which broke almost every tenet
>of statistical sampling if you are referring to the McKensie (sp?)
>report, which I assume you are since that's the report most people
>quote when they throw this 10% figure around.  More recent research
>indicates that McKensie's case studies were not statistically
>representative of the overall population, but sampled from a 
>restricted, non-representative group.  This is a serious and 
>fundamental flaw in the research, and brings the findings 
>into serious doubt.

Assuming for the moment you are correct (it's been a while since I've
followed the back-and-forth on the percentages here; I know there's
been some criticism of the Kinsey report, but the last figures I've
seen continue to support ~10% among men), all this says is that the
10% figure applies in certain populations.  You claim to have reason
to believe it's substantially smaller in the population at large: what
is your evidence for that?

>> As to you knowing if your friends were gay or not, I had one of the 
>> shocks of my life when my best friend, of 8 years, told me he was
>> gay. I truly had no idea. 
>
>I doubt that any *8 year old* really has any idea either.

Either you forgot a smiley here or you're having an off day.  "Best
friend of eight years" means "Best friend, who's been my friend for
eight years", not "my eight-year-old best friend".  For what it's
worth, my best friend during college also later came out as gay.  I
hadn't suspected (I guess I wasn't "shocked" or bothered when I found
out, but I was surprised).  It's not printed on the forehead in red.

Bear in mind that there is very little advantage for a gay person to
advertise that fact in general daily life; in some communities it
seems more common than others -- when I lived in an academic community
(you know, elite PC liberal establishment, and all that) I knew a lot
more gay people (as being gay) than I know as such in the (still
mostly liberal elite PC in this case) computer business.  If you hang
out among conservatives, and especially among conservative Christians,
I imagine there's even less incentive for those who happen to be
homosexual to make it general knowledge.

I really don't have a gut feeling for overall statistics: in a sense I
think it's all a red herring; whether the gay population is 1% or 20%
they're still worthy of being treated as people.  Anyway; of the
people I've known, it seems credible to me that one in 10 are gay.  As
a very rough estimate, of 14 people in a mail database of various
friends and net acquaintances, 2 I know to be gay (one the
aforementioned college friend).  Just one data point.

>Your "notice" of the "gay" community reminds me of Sherlock Holmes
>noticing a flea on his dinner plate using his 5X looking glass.   :)
>
>(If you don't "get it", your "statistics" are about 5 times too high.)

What are your data points, Jim?  I can buy, for the moment, that the
Kinsey research leading to 10% is imperfect, meaning it could be 1,
10, 20, or anything else.  But what makes you think 2% is the magic
number?  Why is Kinsey off by the magic factor of 5?  Why high by 5x
rather than low by 5x?

>Regards,
>
>Jim B.
-- 
Jim Perry   	    	    	    Distributed Object Computing Program
perry@apollo.hp.com	    	    Hewlett-Packard Co., Chelmsford MA
This is the way the breakfast ends, not with a wimp but a banger.