I wonder are the contributers to the survey also now blind?

sigh.

Thank you very much for your clarifying reply.

I totaly agree with you, that the article, as published by Fox, is absolutely useless and only helps Fox to interpret the informations published at the SIAMS congress tendentioulsy in order to make an own statement about porn consumption.

I found some more informations about what was published at the congress on italian newspapers. The informations given by Fox are compressed that much, that the initial information content is lost.

After my research on this topic I can’t even tell if Foresta participated on the study/survey (whatever ist was) or just made a statement as SIAMS president and member of the board of directors.

The articles I found about this on italian sites focus on the problem of young male adolescents consuming a lot of internet porn and what effect this has on their sexuality (e.g. erectile dysfunction) and problems re the relationship towards girls of the same age.

Again, many thanks for your reply and also for questioning the information given by the news.

Perhaps my use of the broom picture it was a bit too subtle. It was a comment about what information is find on the web. Foresta’s survey is being reported in the U.S. press as something important. With half an hour or so of research, I can’t even find an abstract of it — not even in Italian. But I can find a picture of Foresta participating in a (laudable) campaign to clean up Padua.

I believe the Fox news story and the picture of Foresta holding a broom to be of equivalent web randomness. Both are propaganda, but one is not harmful.

It’s not Foresta’s fault that the average American knows squat about how medical or behavioral studies are done. That’s (partially) Fox’s fault. Throughout this article, I hope I made it obvious that my criticisms of reporting on Foresta are not intended to imply he is not a good endocrinologist or pathologist. From his resume, he looks pretty impressive. I am criticizing Fox News’s reporting of non-information. It’s not Foresta’s fault Fox quoted him or reported his survey clearly out of any meaningful context for anyone who knows anything about science.

I’m not even implying that this survey is not valuable. It may even be mis-reported by Fox. For all I know the conditions may have been controlled and this would be valuable clinical information.

What I’m commenting on throughout is that this information, as reported by Fox News, is meaningless. I know virtually NOTHING about the study, which is Fox’s bad for not asking the right questions (like they care?) Without at least an abstract being available, reading about this survey with one brief quote from Foresta on Fox news is the news equivalent of hearing “My friend says her husband has been looking at web porn and now he can’t get it up. It’s obvious what’s causing that!”

This does not address fundamental flaws in the survey — I know virtually nothing about the survey, because the abstract is not available. Just having a soundbite of Foresta’s conclusions is not just empty but DANGEROUS. An abstract is the very LEAST that would be required for anyone who knows anything about scientific studies to evaluate what the survey actually might mean or not mean for themselves. I don’t know. I don’t have that abstract. I only know about the Fox story, and it’s garbage.

And yet, Foresta’s survey will be quoted in passing as “fact” the next time a media pundit who vaguely remembers hearing about it needs an example of how porn is changing men for the worse. No one will challenge it. No one will question it. It will enter popular consciousness as a simple fact: porn makes men impotent. OF COURSE it does, they’ll say.

AND, another indisputable fact, Foresta helped clean up the city of Padua. In the context of what I’ve seen, in the context of not my speaking Italian, THAT fact is more inarguably established than anything Foresta’s study said.

But I do not understand why you wrote about that picture you found of Carlo Foresta holding a broom. This has nothing to do with the topic and it seems as you’re making fun of Mr. Foresta just because of this picture and refer to a reduced credibility as a scientist. As you have enough other arguments this wasn’t necessary and not useful to your article.

This picture was part of a campaign of leading people in Padua who care about their city and the people. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Perhaps I dind’t get the point why you refered to this picture. Therefore I apologize if I’m wrong about your intentions.

Seriously this is a great guest post debunking a piece of terrible science. I think it’s important for people to hear not just that something is false, but also an explanation of why and how to spot it next time. Well done.