Thanks for the response. With regards to the last bit: how then does one correctly interpret this stuff?
For this question, then, you're completely off the mark. You may have presented a correct interpretation. Likely, you didn't. Either way, it's exceedingly difficult to present the case that one definitely is the case when there's simply not enough relevant information presented to lead one from what you cited to your interpretation. You would need to present the information that actually connects the two, rather than throwing in variables that aren't addressed at all.
What does one need to avoid coming to such interpretations and instead come to the correct, "well-informed" ones?
Again, your misunderstanding shows, here, but see above, in short. The simple answer to this is that well-informed interpretations take into account all the relevant information. What you've done is toss out a couple isolated facts and made suggestions that... while it's possible that the suggestions are correct, it would very much be jumping to conclusions to accept them based on the presented, and even more of a leap with even a passing knowledge of the relevant social factors.
Also, how are the interpretations I gave wrong, exactly?
Unsupported premises. That's not saying that they're wrong, it's saying that they're untrustworthy as they stand. Where I directly said "no," it was in response to you asking "Does this mean X?" For it to mean X, a number of other things not currently in evidence or, potentially, are contraindicated by relevant information not presented directly here would need to be true, thus, it does not actually mean X.
E.g. with regards to the first quoted passage -- it says "Researchers have provided evidence that gay men report having had less loving and more rejecting fathers, and closer relationships with their mothers, than non-gay men." Then I said that "The first quote seems to imply that homosexuality may at least in part be due to an unbalanced family environment, where the parents are not equally loving."
What factors are in play that have and haven't been accounted for, with regards to the reporting? How great is the difference? How much of the discrepancy is attributable to social views on homosexuality and expected gender behavior being reflected in the relationships with the parents? For all that's actually been presented, that could account for the entirety of the discrepancy. How consistent are the numbers? Are there a number of homosexuals with a pair of fairly "normally" or "more" loving parents and a number with much more greatly strained relationships with one of them? Gay men with highly religiously conservative fathers would likely tend to have much more problematic relationships with their fathers, as an example, as a reaction, not a cause. Regarding expected gender behavior, as well, a comparison to the relationships with parents to straight men who display differing behavior from expected would be needed to be looked into. Those are just a couple points that aren't addressed at all by the first statement. In short, the first statement reports a correlation. Your statement implies a particular causation, which is actually not supported by the statement.
Going beyond that, so far, it seems that you seem to be using homosexuality and male homosexuality interchangeably, which does immediately beg questions about how applicable your statements are to female homosexuality. Given that your sources seem to solely be focused on male homosexuality, the generalization seems to be ill-advised.
The quoted text mentions unequal love, and what I said seems to simply rephrase what is already said, and note that I say "may".
It really doesn't just rephrase it. Again, correlation versus suggested causation.
I don't get how the second interpretation drastically changes the meaning, except perhaps the use of the word "unbalanced", but in my context it seems clear what it means there: imbalance of love.
Imbalance from what, exactly, for starters? Different from a different group, yes, but imbalance implies something a bit different than what you had quoted actually indicates. Again, of far more relevance is identifying
why there is a difference from the claimed average of straight male relationships with their parents, which would be far more pertinent to determining the answers to the questions that you're raising, rather than simply suggesting one particular causation out of multiple possibilities.
So how is it wrong? You say there is "quite the gap", so what to me seems like a simple change of wording must alter the meaning dramatically -- how does it do this?
See above.
And finally, how good is Wikipedia, really?
That depends on the topic. It's a fine starting point for investigation, usually, at worst, though. Usually, it's good for at least a general overview of whatever topic is in question, as well.
