prudence@trwrba.UUCP (Charles E. Prudence) (08/13/84)
[] Steven recently asked about the statistic asserting that 15% of all women will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetimes. Steven, the way to lie in this case is to assume that exponential increases will continue forever. In this case, it was observed that sexual assault went up by X% in the last decade. By assuming that the rate will continue to go up by the same amount indefinately into the future, you can create as large a figure as you want. Ya gotta be careful with this technique, because if you follow it out, it predicts that all women will be victimized sometime in the next century. The clever thing to do is to limit the extrapolation to those currently alive, yielding a shocking figure, yet one that is not obviously cooked. Note well: I am *not* saying that sexual assault is trivial, laughable, or acceptable. I *am* saying that debates on public policy must be based on the truth. Charles Prudence
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (08/14/84)
The last time this subject came up it was claimed that 1 out of every 3 women now living would be raped at some time. No doubt the same devious statistical procedure was used to get that figure. No one who advanced it came up with anything but excuses for references. On a similar note, I believe the cost of a single tactical aircraft and the entire US defense budget, if extrapolated at their present rates of increase, will be identical sometime around the year 2045. Now do you think this is really going to happen? Jeff Winslow