Latest research on circumcision suggests doubt that it will affect sexual sensitivity

[andrewJ]

i will also say this.

I do not put much faith in the findings of these studies. There are simply far too many variables. As much as men may appear to be, they are not robots with two states- aroused and non aroused. There are degrees of everything involved in these studies, and too many factors to even begin to control. It is a topic that i think no study will ever resolve, at least for me.

..and yes, i am including the studies which say the opposite. As we all know, they can all be accused of bias, they all contradict each other, etc etc. It is well known that different people have different responses to pain, sensitivity and feeling in general, and it is something even with perfect methodology that just wouldnt answer any questions for me.

I am resorting to reason and common sense.

[Can I?]

I'm sorry but this is poor science. Validity of any study is not detirmined by the sample size, it's power is affected amd as you note the error rate can be higher dependant on the controls engendered within the study.
However a bias that is built into the study calls into question the results regardless of the sample size and should ideally be dismissed out of hand, partularly when there seems to be a significant structural error within the study.

You are a braver man than I if you can dismiss a study based on bias when you haven't read the method or seen how the participants were selected. I have no idea how either study was really structured or conducted, I was just commenting on what I could see from the article. I didn't mention the validity of either study, I simply mentioned that a small sample size wasn't ideal (it is very difficult to see true statistical significance from a smaller sample size isn't it?), especially when we have no idea how participants were selected.

I wouldn't say that bias was built into the second experiment at all. As I read it, the men involved were touched on the penis at several different points and asked when they could feel it. Even if the researchers were expecting the result to fall in one direction (and they could tell which participants were circed and which weren't), they should simply record the result as it was reported. Unless there was very bad science like result fudging or poking the intact guys harder, it shouldn't have made a difference who it was funded by.

andrewj - I have to totally agree with you. I thought that same quote was an absurd thing to say. If the foreskin wasn't meant to have any sensitivity then it wouldn't have any nerve endings in it. It wouldn't do a good job of protecting the penis without that sensitivity.