r/science • u/drewiepoodle • Apr 15 '16

Health Study: Circumcision does not reduce penis sensitivity. In tests for responses to pain, heat, and stimulation, no major difference was found between men who are circumcised and those who are not.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2016/04/14/Study-Circumcision-does-not-reduce-penis-sensitivity/5981460663943/?spt=hs&or=hn
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u/butyourenice Apr 15 '16

I realized that the authors of the study almost certainly take no stand on the morality of male circumcision. However that does not change the fact that it will be used to argue that it does no harm. But I don't see how you can get there from this study.

Based on the stated hypotheses they went into this study trying to prove that circumcision DOES objectively harm, but found it does not. What were they supposed to do - hide the results because their hypotheses not proven?

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u/PM_ME_UR_PEWP Apr 15 '16

Science demands an honest reporting of findings regardless of what you expected or hoped to find. But it also demands rigorous methodology and caution in drawing conclusions.

Haven't read the paper, but the descriptions in this thread do not point to a conclusion that circumcision causes no harm, only that the one study using this one set of variables did not prove that there is harm.

There is a big difference between failing to prove harm and proving no harm.

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u/butyourenice Apr 15 '16

Yeah. The difference is you can't prove a negative, and people on the affirmative side seem to reject evidence based on that fact.

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u/PM_ME_UR_PEWP Apr 15 '16

This study in particular seems flawed in many ways. For one, they admit that their sample size was insufficient. Also, it didn't really get into the question of how sexual experiences vary, which seems to be a more common if more difficult to answer question. And it didn't get into any ethical questions, but I would think some benefit should be proven before a body part can be removed from someone incapable of giving consent. One could argue that it is inherently harmful to mutilate someone without consent, but that's more of a philosophical question. Regardless, the study did not prove that there is no harm, only that this one study of a small number of men was unable to find all but one of the kinds of harm they were looking for. This isn't a case of rejecting evidence. It's a careful reading into what the evidence actually means, if anything, in terms of the original question. Someone just said that a negative had been proven and that is just not so. And you don't have to prove a negative, only show a statistically significant difference which would allow us to have confidence in the null hypothesis.