Letter to APA
[To: ] Dr. Raymond Fowler
President: American Psychological Association
750 First Street, N.E.
Washington, DC 20002-4242
[From: Dr. Elaine Hatfield, President SSSS and a list of others - see
below]
July 3, 1999
Dear Dr. Fowler:
We, the president and past-presidents of the Society for the
Scientific Study of Sex, members of the SSSS Executive Committee,
and editors of Journal of Sex Research and the Archives of
Human Sexuality would like to urge the American Psychological
Association to take a strong stand in support of Dr. Bruce Rind (Temple
University), Dr. Robert Bauserman (State of Maryland), and Mr. Philip
Tromovitch (University of Pennsylvania), and in support of the right and
need for sexual scientists to be able to conduct human sexuality
research, unconstrained by political considerations. We would like to
make the following points:
 | (a) If society is going to solve the serious social problems that
confront us, it needs knowledge and accurate information. Theorists
and sexual science researchers can make a unique contribution. Their
tradition demands that they attempt to provide a fair and objective
analysis of social phenomena and provide scientific information—both
qualitative and quantitative—based on the highest of scientific
standards.
|
| (b) Political considerations and calculations must be kept
separate from the scientific enterprise and/or in the publication
decisions of the decisions of scientific journal editors. Only
scholarly research that is free, disinterested, and scrupulously
honest can hope to provide useful answers to challenging questions.
|
| (c) We would hope that APA would resist the efforts of various
political, religious, and special lobbying groups to intervene in
the scientific enterprise — shaping what is studied, by whom it is
studied, how it is studied, and the results that are secured and
reported. At the present time, the major scientific journals have
peer-review process in place to evaluate ALL studies and
experiments. Currently, all kinds of research are evaluated, using
the same rigorous scientific standards. For APA or any other
organization to single out "controversial" studies from
all others and apply a second and a third filter in judging whether
or not such studies should be published and disseminated is to cast
a chill on all such research. In addition, this process would be, by
definition, discriminatory. |
We, the past presidents of SSSS and the current editor of the Annual
Review of Sex Research join together in urging you to staunchly
support the right of sexual scientists to engage in free intellectual
inquiry — especially in the area of "controversial"
research.
Warmest regards,
Dr. Elaine Hatfield, President SSSS
Also signed by:
Dr. Albert Ellis, First President of SSSS
Dr. Elizabeth Rice Allgeier, Past President SSSS
Dr. Vern L. Bullough, Past President SSSS
Dr. Clive Davis, Past President SSSS
Dr. Richard P. Keeling, Past President SSSS
Dr. John Money, Past President SSSS
Dr. Naomi McCormick, Past President SSSS
Dr. Charlene Muehlenhard, Past President SSSS
Dr. Ira Reiss, Past President SSSS
Dr. Stephanie Sanders, Past President SSSS
Dr. Pepper Schwartz, Past President SSSS
Dr. Julia Heiman, Editor, Annual Review of Sex Research |
