There are, as the saying goes, three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. The last are the most devastating, because they carry the imprimatur of authority. Of course, statistics on their own aren’t bad. In fact, they’re one of the most useful tools we have for cutting through bullshit and getting somewhere near the truth.
So long as they’re used with honest intent and, even more importantly, that they’re gathered with honest intent.
In the case of the former, consider a statistic like, ‘ingredient X doubles your cancer risk’. Well, that sounds scary, doesn’t it? But consider: if your cancer risk without ingredient X is one in one million, ‘ingredient X makes your cancer risk two in one million’ isn’t quite so scary.
As to the latter, study design is a field in its own. Badly designed studies are the epitome of the GIGO principle: Garbage In, Garbage Out. When studies are deliberately badly designed, it’s lies on stilts.
Feminists are particularly given to misusing statistics. The ABC will trumpet that ‘one in four homeless are women’, which means that three-quarters of homeless are men. But feminists don’t want you to think about that. It’s the same when they screech that ‘X number of women have been killed this year’. What they won’t tell you is that, on any average year, three times as many men as women are killed.
Feminists are even more egregiously given to apparently deliberately badly designed studies that are little better than data fraud. Yet, having fished for the answers they want, they then trumpet the results as unassailable truth. Consider the claim that ‘one in four women in American colleges are raped’. As conservative commentator Steven Crowder points out, this would mean that American college campuses are as dangerous as the Congo, where rape is deliberately used as a weapon of war. Does anyone seriously believe that?
So, how did such an obviously bogus statistic become accepted as conventional wisdom? By the same mendacious means as another study that claims “95 per cent of men in a randomised study admitted to being rapists and sexually coercive”.
The first big lie is “randomised study”. In fact, the study was as far from randomised as can possibly be imagined.
This research was designed to focus on men who admit to having intentionally and knowingly sexually aggressed against a woman who they knew did not want sex nor consented to it.
So, right off the bat, they’re admitting to deliberately focus on men who fit the profile for the conclusion they’re fishing for.
How did they find them? The study is rather coy on this, apart from stating that “The survey was hosted online via Qualtrics Panel… Participants received the equivalent of $10 USD in compensation.” OK, but how did the participants find the Qualtrics Panel? Usually, these are distributed via paid advertising on social media, etc. Nowhere in the published paper do the authors say where they distributed the links to the online panel. Yet, this is important information: imagine a study that concluded that ‘90 per cent of men engage in homosexual sex’, via a link published on Grindr.
The authors also cavalierly admit to manipulating their study participants:
The study was described as exploring positive and negative interactions between men and women in sexual situations. The consent form indicated that the survey was men’s opportunity “to provide their side of the story given that we have heard so much from women” about male-female sexual interactions.
If you’re starting to wonder how this study proposal ever passed an ethics board, you’re not alone. As one sceptical commenter on X noted, their sample boils down to: Guys willing to answer a bunch of hook-up questions for $10.
Hands up who thinks that’s going to skew results?
But, as academic Wilfred Reilly notes, it gets worse. Much worse.
These below are the things listed as rape. The list includes:
Continuing to kiss someone before any “no,” hitting on a stranger, having both groups of friends let you guys be alone, and drinking together… snatch[ing] a second kiss after a hesitant first one.
Here are some of their other definitions of ‘rape’:
Told her whatever she wanted to hear […]
Used your money, age, status to convince her.
Of the things that you or I, or any normal person, would actually consider rape, such as:
Just overpowered her physically from the start.
Used physical restraint (such as holding her down, or tying her hands).
Threatened to hurt her.
Used drugs to help (e.g., GHB or roofies).
Over 90 per cent of respondents answered each of these with Never. Even of those who did, many admitted that no sex occurred.
But, ‘the vast majority of men in a deliberately badly designed study never resorted to rape in order to obtain sex and even the rapists struck out a lot’ just doesn’t tell feminists what they want so desperately to hear.
