Dante said much to refute your usual in his response, but I'll add some of my own two (or four) cents to it here.

While membership in B4U-ACT doesn't disqualify someone from being interviewed, my recollection is that Paul Cristiano's appearances do not usually mention his connection to b4u-act.

Then your recollection is not completely accurate, because he has appeared in press interviews acting as a rep for B4U-ACT. There are other times, of course, where he speaks on the issues without acting as a spokesman for the org. He has a life apart from it, of course.

Virtuous Pedophiles as an organization gets quite a bit of press attention. It has a message that resonates with people in a way that B4U-ACT's does not.

B4U-ACT has gotten a lot of press attention too through the years. And its message resonates with people in a way Virpeds does not: It doesn't feed into the stereotypes that automatically focus attention on the "MAPs are inherently dangerous" attitude. More importantly, as I noted elsewhere, it approaches the public in a way that compromises and takes their concerns into consideration without pandering to them in a manner that assumes bigoted attitudes are always at the forefront of their mind, and in a way that plays into common prejudices against the MAP community as a whole.

I do take your point that there is a wide range of opinion among scientists about pedophilia, and activists have different views on them as well. I'm not aware of any positions Mike Bailey holds that are inconsistent with VP positions.

What I did say is that Dr. Bailey acknowledges that the indoctrinated bias factor does color the attitudes even of scientists while simultaneously acknowledging that the science does not back up this socio-cultural instinct. His fealty to science, and the fact that he takes his position as a scientist seriously, can most certainly be said to be inconsistent with the Virped position that what science says cannot be relied upon, and thus can be readily dismissed in favor of majority public sentiment.

Among the rotten tomatoes coming my way lately I've seen the allegation that I ignore science, or pretend that science has settled some matter that it has not.

Science hasn't "settled" the matter. What it has done, however, is make it clear that the available scientific data which has been cultivated in an objective, peer-reviewed manner using proper scientific methodology thus far does not back up the commonly held beliefs. Rind said this quite clearly, as did Bailey when he noted that while available scientific data is "not definitive," that which does exist "...does not convict the pedophile." In other words, more scientific research certainly has to be conducted, but that which has so far been collated properly does not in any way suggest that commonly held beliefs have a basis in fact.

A question like, "Does anarcho-syndicalism maximize human happiness (as measured by surveys)?" is in theory a scientific question, but it is just very hard to get good data. Really hard to get good controlled experiments.

Going to the source like Rind, Sandfort, Thompson, and others have--i.e., talking to individuals who have actually been involved in intergenerational liaisons as the youth participant, either in the present time (Sandfort) or in the past (Rind, Tromovich, et al.; Thompson)--and comparing and contrasting the data under strict scientific methodology and scrutiny is considerably more reliable than turning solely to hearsay anecdotes, media pronouncements, or watching cheaply produced TV movies on the Lifetime network that is well known for having a specific agenda and audience in mind.

The matter isn't so "complicated" that science cannot sort out the likely facts using strict methodology. The "complicated" excuse is often used to dismiss any available evidence that doesn't fit with common sentiment.

Consider that we live in a society that (rightly, in my view) has in some important ways higher standards for children's welfare than ever before.

Yet these standards that are allegedly in favor of children's welfare to such a high degree as you purport happen to disproportionately focus attention on regulating and stifling any and all sexual expression for underagers, or anything whatsoever that has to do with sexuality, compared to focusing on demonstrably much more rampant forms of harm such as: automobile-related dangers; emotionally abusive parenting "methods" that cause so many youths to run away from home since they have no other recourse; danger that comes from within the home, including but not limited to parental bullying; a lackluster educational system that bullies them on many levels and treats them like cattle; the extremely detrimental effects of poverty, neglect, etc. This leads me to conclude, based on good empirical evidence, that we live in a society that places higher standards on the control of children and maintaining their culturally mandated "place" in society and its institutions than it does on actually keeping them safe from demonstrable harm and danger. This is why I believe your agenda lies in that direction first and foremost as well.

For instance, we don't marry off girls without their consent at all, and rarely allow it below the age of 16. Acceptance in a few past societies of adult-child sex is largely irrelevant.

Note your use of the word "allow." This does indeed make the question of societies that allowed and tolerated certain choices quite relevant.

This society also metes out iatrogenic harm in large doses. It is a scientific question whether a society that was transformed to approve of adult-child sex would have significant measurable harm to minors, and how much harm that would be. But it is going to be very hard to get close to performing that experiment.

Making assumptions based on cultural and moralizing attitudes based more on decorum and custom than anything else, while deriding the capabilities and relevance of science, is hardly the way to go in my estimation.

It is a question of values whether that harm would outweigh the benefits of some freedoms.

This is the very common rationalization of security vs. freedom proponents when it comes to any given group, I should again point out. Forcing people not to make certain personal decisions regarding their own life for some moralizing aspect of "harm" has never worked out well for any particular group, and with good reason: The "harm" it seeks to prevent has more to do with preserving status quo institutions that preserve privileges for certain groups over others, and which do not offend the sensibilities of said beneficiaries. Epic fail on many levels. Those who are able to put emotion aside sufficiently to recognize clearly draconian rhetoric when they hear or read it are not destined to ultimately make an "exception" for this or that bit of draconian policies.

Rind showed harm from adult-child sex was not universal and not typically severe. But it did exist.

Usually when it was non-consensual, which is a no-brainer I would think. And not in anywhere near sufficient measures to justify a moral panic or mass infringement of rights on a "just in case" basis.

As another vital data source, we do know that large numbers of abuse survivors today believe they were seriously damaged.

But even survivors of genuine abuse are iatrogenically conditioned and sociogenically encouraged by a certain pervasive school of thought to be "damaged" severely rather than heal, because it benefits a certain lucrative and socially influential industry--the same ilk who promulgated the Satanic ritual abuse nonsense and repressed memory syndrome mythology that made them fortunes at the expense of duping society and many of their patients in a highly destructive way--as well as providing the less scrupulous victims with excuses to act out and behave in any manner they chose while making anyone fear speaking out against them lest they be labeled as insensitive jerks.

But even more importantly, it conditions many who had consensual relationships they found positive to reconceptualize the past contact in a way that is more socially acceptable, or in some cases, likely to provide a financial windfall for themselves and their money-grubbing lawyers. The mass promotion of such attitudes encourages unscrupulous individuals of all sorts to victimize many innocent people in society by creating and/or maintaining as many "victims" as they can, and manipulating public sentiment to go along with it. When the data from scientists like Susan Clancy, who openly hates MAPs and derides male sexuality as much as anyone else who does, is pointing to this, then you know you need to listen and take heed.

It's all a question of values how to weigh that harm against freedom.

I think, Ethan, it's yet another way of finding an emotionally compelling rationale for putting moralistic values ahead of freedom of choice and civil liberties. We've seen more than enough variations of that tendency, as well as the "do-gooders" who promote in favor of a "noble" cause, throughout the history of political democracy, not to mention long before its establishment.

It's a question of values whether to try to transform society in some particular way when unsure of the outcome.

This is another way of exploiting fear of change to prevent needed changes which would inconvenience the privileged beneficiaries of the present institutions. As usual, it's done with the claim that the oppressed minorities are in a "safer place" by continuing to be oppressed minorities, and why it's "better" for the privileged groups to continue being the overseers of the oppressed. In short, it's yet another example of using that fear of change to argue against the emancipation of a particular group or groups of people. It requires overlooking a lot of the lessons we should learn from examining the entire historical record of human civilization, of course.

I don't recall claiming that science has settled some relevant question, but I may not be remembering.

I don't think anyone on either side has ever claimed that science has "settled" anything. It has been stated that what scientific data has been properly collected doesn't favor the current consensus view, and that is accurate.