More Fun With Family Facts
Apparently, my post on the Heritage Foundation sponsored FamilyFacts.org actually drew a response. Which of course begs the question, was someone from the Heritage Foundation actually taking time out of their day to read this wonderfully crafted blog and prepare a response to my accusations?
Let me first be clear on something- By no means did I intend to disparage the accuracy of the information provided by the website. My intent was to question whether the sorts of correlations conveyed by the studies reported on the site actually have any deeper meaning. This is not to be partisan, but just to point out the limited value of value of such correlations.
For instance, there is a finding on the site that links intact family structure with family dinners. But what does this mean? It could mean that families that eat together, wind up staying together. Or it could mean that families are just more likely to eat together if they stay intact. Or there may be no causal relationship at all.
According to the response I received,
Simply summarizing the research findings as published by the researchers, familyfacts.org does not interpret the findings, take policy positions, or make recommendations.
Now this may be true, but I still want to point out that this is not a non-partisan database. FamilyFacts.org is brought to us by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank. Now there's nothing wrong with that- all think tanks have some sort of ideology- but you don't need to conceal the fact that you're a conservative organization. After all, I'm assuming all the research on the website supports the traditional family. In the few searches I did, I could find no research supporting alternative families or questioning traditional family norms. I couldn't find any real research on gay families.
And you know, this is just fine. We're all partisan, and we all have agendas. Just be honest about it.
Let me first be clear on something- By no means did I intend to disparage the accuracy of the information provided by the website. My intent was to question whether the sorts of correlations conveyed by the studies reported on the site actually have any deeper meaning. This is not to be partisan, but just to point out the limited value of value of such correlations.
For instance, there is a finding on the site that links intact family structure with family dinners. But what does this mean? It could mean that families that eat together, wind up staying together. Or it could mean that families are just more likely to eat together if they stay intact. Or there may be no causal relationship at all.
According to the response I received,
Simply summarizing the research findings as published by the researchers, familyfacts.org does not interpret the findings, take policy positions, or make recommendations.
Now this may be true, but I still want to point out that this is not a non-partisan database. FamilyFacts.org is brought to us by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank. Now there's nothing wrong with that- all think tanks have some sort of ideology- but you don't need to conceal the fact that you're a conservative organization. After all, I'm assuming all the research on the website supports the traditional family. In the few searches I did, I could find no research supporting alternative families or questioning traditional family norms. I couldn't find any real research on gay families.
And you know, this is just fine. We're all partisan, and we all have agendas. Just be honest about it.
posted by lonely libertarian at 3:31 PM
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