Science often must deal with issues that are politically controversial. However, there are dangers in dealing with controversial research and serious risks to the process of doing science and to the credibility of science, particularly social science. Here, I discuss lessons learned from engaging in and criticizing controversial research for nearly four decades. Social science research as a process is being damaged by questionable research practices, several of which are discussed. Social science results are being misrepresented through a variety of weak or incorrect methodologies, each of which is discussed. Discourse about social science results often shifts from academic discussion into attempts to discredit those with whom one may disagree. Science and the public are not being well served by these problems, so new researchers and policymakers need to be aware of them. For teaching purposes, examples are also presented of controversial research in which new analyses off er diff erent results than previously reported.My journey dealing with controversial research may have begun with my older brother's dissertation ( Schumm, 1966 ), about which he told me, when I was 15-yr. old, that probably one-third of what scientists had thought they knew about the research topic had been incorrect. That situation imbued me with a certain sense of skepticism about scientifi c research on one hand, but a sense of optimism on the other hand that one could -through better science -correct such things and make improvements. Only later did I fi nd Cohen (1990 ) saying essentially the same thing with respect to social science -"One of the things I learned early on was that some things you learn aren't so" (p. 1304).Even well-known historical events can be deconstructed statistically to show that things did not occur as we have been led to believe. Here are some examples of which readers may or may not be aware. The week before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. was trying to ambush the Japanese. In the RMS Titanic disaster, the lowest survival rates for men and the highest survival rates for women and children were among the middle class passengers, suggesting a new nonlinear theory of social class and compliance with social rules. The Challenger disaster could have been predicted in advance with simple statistics ( Schumm, Webb, Castelo, Akagi, Jensen, Ditto, et al ., 2002 ). There are many other examples, in this author's own experience, in which research did not turn out as might have been expected. Grover, Russell, Schumm, and Paff -Bergen (1985 ) showed that the best predictor of later marital satisfaction was the length of time taken before the decision to marry, not the length of engagement. Gwanfogbe, Schumm, Smith, and Furrow (1997 ) reported that in some situations a wife might be happier in a bigamous marriage. Hendrix, Jurich, and Schumm (1995 ) showed that adverse eff ects on a veteran's family life after observing prisoner abuse lasted for decades. In Moxley, Eggeman, and Schumm 1 Address correspondence to Dr. Schumm, S...
