Recent media coverage of studies about 'gaydar,' the supposed ability to detect another's sexual orientation through visual cues, reveal problems in which the ideals of scientific precision strip the context from intrinsically social phenomena. This fallacy of objective measurement, as we term it, leads to nonsensical claims based on the predictive accuracy of statistical significance. We interrogate these gaydar studies' assumption that there is some sort of pure biological measure of perception of sexual orientation. Instead, we argue that the concept of gaydar inherently exists within a social context and that this should be recognized when studying it. We use this case as an example of a more general concern about illusory precision in the measurement of social phenomena and suggest statistical strategies to address common problems.

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盖达尔与去语境化测量的谬误

最近有关“盖达尔”的研究的媒体报道，所谓的“盖达尔”通过视觉提示检测他人性取向的能力，揭示了一些问题，在这些问题中，科学精确度的理想将背景从本质上与社会现象隔离开来。正如我们所称，客观测量的这种谬误导致基于统计意义的预测准确性的荒谬说法。我们质疑这些盖达尔研究的假设，即存在某种纯粹的生物学方法来衡量性取向。取而代之的是，我们认为盖达尔的概念固有地存在于社会环境中，在研究之时应予以承认。