What about conversion therapy that we've been talking about -
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapyIs this science fake or not? This article explains how it used to be a prevalent treatment and how homosexuality used to be considered an abnormality in medicine, but those practices are now condemed.
The first sentence of this article says "Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual using psychological or spiritual interventions."
Is that really because it's pseudoscience or is it because society thinks it's pseudoscience? If you read the article you learn that some psychologists were having success with it:
"Before the American Psychological Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM, practitioners of conversion therapy employed aversive conditioning techniques, involving electric shock and nausea-inducing drugs during presentation of same-sex erotic images. Cessation of the aversive stimuli was typically accompanied by the presentation of opposite-sex erotic images, with the objective of strengthening heterosexual feelings. In "Aversion therapy for sexual deviation: a critical review", published in 1966, M. P. Feldman claimed a 58% cure rate, but Douglas Haldeman is skeptical that such stressful methods permit feelings of sexual responsiveness, and notes that Feldman defined success as suppression of homosexuality and increased capacity for heterosexual behavior.[77]"
58% is pretty significant, if true.
Here the LA Times is actually defending conversion therapy and criticizing a California bill banning it:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-friedersdorf-gay-conversion-20180427-story.html%3f_amp=trueConversion therapy for gays is awful, but so is California’s bill to ban it"Indeed, it would seem to encompass a gay man who goes to a therapist and says, “Look, I understand that you can’t make me straight, but I’m married to a woman, we have children, and I want to try to be faithful to her and focus on our family at least until the kids are out of the house — can you help me to change my behavior, or at least reduce how often I think about sex with men?”
So what's the answer here, is this science being influenced by social stigmas and social norms or is it really fake and undeserving of investigation and the light of day?