He is trying to say that the fact the conclusions are true does not mean the reasoning behind it is.

For example, I can say that hell is at the center of the Earth, and that's why it's hot.

It is indeed hot, but it is not due to hell at all.

In the context of this article, I don't think anyone is contesting that gay people are more likely to kill themselves, or that gay marriage is not an improvement.

However, the quality of this specific study apparently can be doubted, and the fact that one agree with the conclusion does not mean we should be lenient on the quality of the math behind it

We expect A implies B.

Flawed study shows A implies B.

Hey! Study is flawed!

Flaws don't matter, because it got the expected result.

Hmm. In this example the flaws listed are "we don't know there's a correlation between death by suicide and being gay" -- but we do know that, and we have good evidence for it.

In this particular example the linked blog post is not saying "hey, this study is flawed", but is saying "I hate gay people and I don't want them to think that their sham marriage is in anyway equivalent to my real marriage". It's pretty clear that the linked post is only trying to find flaw with this study because they disagree with it; if you presented something with exactly the same flaws but showing A implies NotB they'd be praising it as good quality science that supports their point.

EDIT: a quote from the linked post:

>> Think about what the authors are implying: that the mere presence of gmarriage — government-defined marriage, as opposed to marriage defined by reality — stops teens from reporting suicide attempts.

>> This is among all teens, mind you, and not just the minority reporting same-sex attraction or other non-biologically oriented sexual desires. The authors claim the effect was greater in the sexual minority.

The author is clearly, unambiguously, a bigot looking to smear a study. He's not engaged in honest science.

Here's another example of his "science" writing, where he calls evolution a "theory in crisis": https://stream.org/darwins-finches-evidence-evolution-think/

In your first paragraph, you're saying that the critique claims, in essence, "We don't know there's a correlation between death by suicide and being gay," and you're saying that claim is false, because there is evidence that suicide rates among gay people are higher than the general population. But that's not what the critique is claiming. What it's claiming is that this JAMA study, in particular, fails to establish the association it claims to establish.

And in your second paragraph, you're saying that the critique is not saying, "Hey, this study is flawed," but is saying, "I hate gay people and I don't want them to think that their sham marriage is in anyway equivalent to my real marriage." Briggs makes no secret of the fact that he rejects same-sex marriage, but the vast majority of his post is devoted to flaws in the study, not to his own personal objections to same-sex marraige, and although his ideological views probably are a motivating factor for his scrutiny of the study, that doesn't necessarily invalidate the points he makes.

For what it's worth, Briggs has written several critiques of several studies. Sometimes the studies challenge his religious views, but not always. His critiques appear to be motivated more by the facts that (1) nearly all studies determine their value by whether they can show p-values less than an arbitrary threshold, and (2) nearly all studies say they measure something, when in fact they measure a proxy.

> Sometimes the studies challenge his religious views, but not always

Has he ever made similar points about studies that support his anti-gay marriage views? or his climate sceptic views? It should be really easy for him to find bad science among climate sceptics - has he ever written about that?

I thought I had read a blog post by him saying, effectively, that skeptics should hold themselves to a higher standard than they currently do. But after a few minutes of searching, I can't find it, and it's possible that I'm simply thinking of a different blogger.

As far as I can tell, Briggs is Catholic, and he does mock Catholic officials -- including the Pope -- occasionally.