Walter Schumm | Kansas State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Walter Schumm

Social Science Research Network, 2015

The Natural Family: A Journal of Research and Public Policy, 2024

If a scientist’s goal is to “prove” the null hypothesis, there are at least sixteen ways to do th... more If a scientist’s goal is to “prove” the null hypothesis, there are at least sixteen ways to do that with seemingly “scientific” methods, even if the net result involves “type 2 error,” as it’s known. (If the goal is to reject the null hypothesis, there are many ways to do that as well, involving type 1 error, or the risk of finding evidence against the null hypothesis when the null is correct. That was not the focus of this report, however.) Therefore, all scholars who care more about facts or truth than political issues must be on the alert for all types of errors than can result from inappropriate methodologies. Unfortunately, it appears that an intention to use research for political purposes may lead to distortions in how research is conducted in ways that are more likely to yield support for those political or legal purposes.

The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 2024

There are at least 16 ways to "prove" the null hypothesis by selectively using statistics, even w... more There are at least 16 ways to "prove" the null hypothesis by selectively using statistics, even when the null would have been rejected had better statistics been used. Examples are presented for each of the 16 ways.

American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research

Was the fall of Afghanistan predictable? What theory might have been overlooked in interpreting r... more Was the fall of Afghanistan predictable? What theory might have been overlooked in interpreting relevant data? What sorts of modeling errors may have occurred? Here we looked into such questions and present evidence that the fall of Afghanistan could have been better predicted with catastrophe theory and nonlinear models, rather than by using only linear modeling and other theories. In particular, using data, from April to August of 2021, from the Long War Journal's website on the number of provinces in Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban or the government, it appears that the fall of the government or the rise of the Taliban were both better predicted by quadratic models than either linear or exponential models. While none of the models would have predicted the fall of the government in mid-August 2021, linear models predicted substantially later dates than did the nonlinear models. Even as early as May or June of 2021, nonlinear models were predicting an earlier collapse of the government than were linear models, ruling out "hindsight" as the best explanation of our findings. For didactic purposes, our results serve as learning points for students to avoid exclusive reliance on both linear modeling and status quo theories that would suggest that sudden change is either unlikely or impossible, despite numerous historical counterexamples .

The Linacre Quarterly

Social science is commonly used in debates about controversial issues, especially for those conce... more Social science is commonly used in debates about controversial issues, especially for those concerning human sexuality. However, caution must be exercised in interpreting such social science literature, because of a variety of methodological and theoretical weaknesses that are not uncommon. Families are complex structurally and over time; such data are not easily analyzed. Merely determining the number of, for example, sexual minority families has been a difficult task. While some new theories are popular with social scientists, for example, sexual minority theory, they are often used to the exclusion of other, equally valid theories and often are not well tested empirically. Some types of families remain relatively unexamined. Social scientists can be biased by their own values, which are reflected in weak use of theory and in a variety of methodological problems. Eight studies are presented as examples of probable confirmation bias, in which methods and theory were modified in unu...

American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research, 2021

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License AJBSR.MS.ID.001935.

American Journal of Public Health, 2021

American Journal of Islam and Society, 2006

A great deal of animosity exists between the western world (andits perceptions of Islam) and the ... more A great deal of animosity exists between the western world (andits perceptions of Islam) and the Muslim world (and its perceptionsof the West). In an attempt to break down stereotypical perceptionsamong non-Muslim university students, instruction in aclass on “Understanding Islam” includes numerous aspects of thelogical wisdom of Islam. One such illustration concerns the roleof the Five Pillars in supporting and maintaining social cohesionamong monotheists. A model of social cohesion and the FivePillars is presented for discussion and reflection ...

American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research, 2020

The current debate over the definition of marriage is typically portrayed as a decision to “expan... more The current debate over the definition of marriage is typically portrayed as a decision to “expand” or “extend” the boundaries of marriage to include same-sex couples. This argument, however, rests on the assumption that the basic nature of marriage will remain largely unchanged by granting marriage status to same-sex partnerships and that all this policy change will do is absorb same-sex partnerships within the existing boundaries of marriage and extend the benefits of marriage to a wider segment of society. Indeed, the very term “same-sex marriage” implies that same-sex couples in committed relationships are already a type of marriage that should be appropriately recognized and labeled as such. But this understanding, which lead to the recent legalization of same-sex marriage by the United States Supreme Court, is flawed in that it fails to recognize how defining same-sex partnerships as marriages signifies a fundamental change in how marriage will be collectively understood and t...

Are same-sex parents more likely to raise lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) children than are heter... more Are same-sex parents more likely to raise lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) children than are heterosexual parents? Since 1991, the answers from social science theory and the answers suggested by much social science research have been in the affirmative: namely, to predict that same-sex parents would be more likely to raise LGB children. Nevertheless, it appears that most scholars have rejected this conclusion and have cast their support in favor of a "no difference" hypothesis, interpreting research as proving that LGB parents are not more likely to raise LGB children. This article provides more than 170 quotes from more than 150 sources by more than 160 scholars and authors who have assumed the truth of the "no difference" hypothesis. However, an assessment of social science research reveals that the children of nonheterosexual parents have been more likely to grow up to engage in same-sex sexual behaviors, or to identify as nonheterosexual, than children raised ...

The entire civilized world has been shocked by the many abuses perpetrated against Muslim prisone... more The entire civilized world has been shocked by the many abuses perpetrated against Muslim prisoners of war by members of the Allied Forces, chiefly the United Kingdom and the United States. Here, the author, a former commander of Enemy Prisoner of War (EPW) units in the U.S. Army Reserve and author of several military articles on the importance of treating prisoners properly, reflects upon the sociological and psychological causes of such unjust, unlawful, and tragic abuse. One possible cause is the adoption of a pragmatic social exchange theory approach, rather than a moral approach, to the humane treatment of enemy prisoners: If the enemy does not hold many prisoners, there is less reason, under a pragmatic approach, to reject abuse ("They cannot get back at us by abusing our people they have captured because they have almost none.").

Internal Medicine Review, 2020

Insights of Anthropology, 2020

Ph.D., the author learned otherwise. Thus, his journey is similar to that of a previous author in... more Ph.D., the author learned otherwise. Thus, his journey is similar to that of a previous author in Insights of Anthropology [1]. However, valuable lessons were still learned in the author's former training that had great applicability to his current career, from which he is about to retire.

Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, Mar 12, 2018

Many undergraduate and most graduate students will find it necessary, if not required, to take a ... more Many undergraduate and most graduate students will find it necessary, if not required, to take a basic course in probability and statistics. Since many academics use statistics more often than probability in performing data analyses for publication in scholarly journals, sections of such classes on probability may be slighted. Furthermore, many texts do not present a unified approach to probability formulas. Here a chart is presented that allows for an integration of formulas as a function of the key issue and the underlying conditions.

Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, 2019