538.com: Pentagon Spends $4.4 Million to Test Troops' Gaydar

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Pentagon Spends $4.4 Million to Test Troops' Gaydar
by Nate Silver

A $4.4 million Pentagon survey which asks its troops a series of questions about Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) has come in for a lot of criticism, mostly related to purported bias in the selection and wording of questions. I might weigh in at more length on the bias claims later; my initial position, having read the survey, is somewhat agnostic. But really, I think the bias accusations somewhat miss the forest for the trees. The survey might or might not be biased -- the bigger problem is that entire parts of it are completely useless.

In particular, given that the army that isn't supposed to have any (openly) gay soldiers, the survey asks the troops to engage in an awful lot of speculation about the gay soldiers in their midst. Typical are questions like these:

Do you currently serve with a male or female Service member you believe to be homosexual.

There are several different version of this question -- the respondent is asked about leaders, coworkers, and subordinates whom he deems to be homosexual, and in turn asks what impact these purported homosexuals are having on his unit's performance and morale.

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Thus, this entire portion of the questionnaire is fairly useless: it more measures the relationship between gossip and unit morale than anything having to do with homosexuality per se. Although this might be modestly interesting as a sociological experiment, any conclusions that it purports to come to about the impact of DADT on morale should be ignored.

In contrast, the survey (at least from what we've seen of it so far) goes out of its way to avoid asking the troops about something which is arguably more relevant and which is certainly more measurable: their opinions about DADT. At no point, for instance does it pose the simple question of whether or not the solider thinks that DADT should be repealed. I'd have no huge problem if we asked our troops that; it would be up to our policymakers to weigh those findings against other factors. But the survey does not solicit the soldiers' opinions; instead, it solicits their speculation on the sexual preferences of their peers. In so doing, it insults their intelligence -- and ours.

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Link: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/07/pentagon-spends-...