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I referred to a survey the other day that appeared in various polyamory-related communities on Livejournal (example, another example, a third example). It's actually even worse that is seems: the survey hasn't been reviewed by either of the groups mentioned in the survey (which was said repeatedly in the comments on the links above).
From The Kinsey Institute's communications director: "Just to clarify, this is not a project that is sanctioned or affiliated with The Kinsey Institute. Our researchers were not consulted regarding this study.
The Kinsey Institute library accepts donations of materials from the public that will help to shed light on sexual behavior and the human experience. We do have a collection of materials on polyamory, and welcome contributions to that collection. We do not, however, collaborate or support research that is conducted without the protection of a human subjects committee or institutional review board."
From the coordinator of The Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities Research Support Program: "CARAS has no involvement in this project. It was not submitted for review by the CARAS Research Advisory Committee, a process that is described on the CARAS website: https://www.caras.ws/index.php/researchsupport/index/"
(The link in that last quote? Includes a process by which someone with no academic affiliations can find mentors and reviewers for doing exactly this work in an ethical and scientifically valid manner. Which makes the whole thing doubly upsetting - it's like the surveyor found the organization through which they could do this properly but for whatever reason didn't actually do so.)
I advise any and all people who consider taking the survey to not do so, and any who did take the survey to request that any information on you (including your answers and IP address) that was recorded by Surveymonkey be permanently deleted immediately. This is bad science masquerading as useful research that's pretending it's merely community outreach. I have no idea what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joreth thinks they're doing, but it's certainly not to the benefit of the poly community.
As for the moral of the story: if you want to do amateur science, go with the hard sciences. That way you'll probably just blow yourself up.
From The Kinsey Institute's communications director: "Just to clarify, this is not a project that is sanctioned or affiliated with The Kinsey Institute. Our researchers were not consulted regarding this study.
The Kinsey Institute library accepts donations of materials from the public that will help to shed light on sexual behavior and the human experience. We do have a collection of materials on polyamory, and welcome contributions to that collection. We do not, however, collaborate or support research that is conducted without the protection of a human subjects committee or institutional review board."
From the coordinator of The Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities Research Support Program: "CARAS has no involvement in this project. It was not submitted for review by the CARAS Research Advisory Committee, a process that is described on the CARAS website: https://www.caras.ws/index.php/researchsupport/index/"
(The link in that last quote? Includes a process by which someone with no academic affiliations can find mentors and reviewers for doing exactly this work in an ethical and scientifically valid manner. Which makes the whole thing doubly upsetting - it's like the surveyor found the organization through which they could do this properly but for whatever reason didn't actually do so.)
I advise any and all people who consider taking the survey to not do so, and any who did take the survey to request that any information on you (including your answers and IP address) that was recorded by Surveymonkey be permanently deleted immediately. This is bad science masquerading as useful research that's pretending it's merely community outreach. I have no idea what
joreth thinks they're doing, but it's certainly not to the benefit of the poly community. As for the moral of the story: if you want to do amateur science, go with the hard sciences. That way you'll probably just blow yourself up.
