A few days ago, in my Magic Mike thought exercise, I concluded with a link to a study suggesting that young boys and girls want more female heroes and fewer as sex objects. While this link didn’t fundamentally affect my article or my opinions on this topic, the authors of this particular study have since reported that the methodology of the study is not a ‘rigorous academic study‘, but rather an exploratory one meant to spur other research.
“From my understanding, she found some pretty interesting findings,” Patchin said. “So now, of course, the next step is to replicate that and do another test in another school. Maybe 100 researchers can take questions and administer them in other populations and see if they hold up. That’s the scientific process.”
Which is all good and well, but we generally don’t write Time magazine articles about research that’s in that stage of development. I’m sure more research will be done in this arena, but this one shouldn’t be considered definitive by anyone for any reason.
Speaking of incomplete research, some time ago noted fake feminists and rape apologists attempted to debunk campus rape stats suggesting that 1 in 5 women in college are sexually assaulted in that time. Questions were raised about the methodology of the research getting that information in an article she wrote for the Washington Post. So whatever happened to that?
[Obama’s comments supporting the study] originally had a Pinocchio rating but that has now been removed in the wake of the publication of The Washington Post-Kaiser Foundation nationwide survey that confirmed the 1 in 5 statistic. The original issue with the statistic was that it was based just on a sample of two universities but was being treated as a nationwide sample. But that concern no longer exists now that a nationwide poll of college-age women has achieved the same result.
Another study has found that at one college, that number is exceeded by the end of that college’s freshman year. Questioning methodology of a study to improve future studies is always a good thing. Still, while sexual assault is a difficult thing to measure accurately, we’re now at a point where a battery of research drives to similar results, That’s how science is supposed to work.
But you can’t convince the old guard of that, no matter how many studies give the same approximate ballpark for these stats. The brigade of rabid conservative culture warriors who cling to their beliefs that sexual assault on campus is not a problem that urgently needs addressing is now reaching climate change levels of denial. Three such denialists will be speaking proudly at AirPlay this month.
Unfortunately it’s all too common for interested parties (amongst them Politicians) to refer to poor research to base articles and in the case of Politicians, governmental policy.
While directed at medical research Ben Goldacre is a good read on many of the inconsistencies and poor practice in media and political circles (seriously any of his books are a good start) while focused on the UK environment I can’t see there being too many startling differences.
Far too many news stories fail to link back to the original research and in some cases the paper trail when followed loops back to little more than the flimsy pre-study announcement at a conference. It is an alarming point to be in when you consider many are disconnected to the source material.
Even when the source material is available it is often locked behind a pay wall :/
One of my favourite sources for info-graphics (http://www.compoundchem.com/) has a great poster for recognising the bad scientific research (http://www.compoundchem.com/2014/04/02/a-rough-guide-to-spotting-bad-science/) and one on the types of research (http://www.compoundchem.com/2015/04/09/scientific-evidence/)
Using the same overbroad definitions doesn’t dispel those criticisms. These aren’t rape statistics despite your indication. Even assuming there are no false positives, these are results for a broad array of sex crimes, from forced kissing, to groping, to rape. Sexual assault = rape in many if not most jurisdictions (including under federal law and in my home state of West Virginia), but clearly not in this survey.
And I won’t go into the problem of false positives in this survey because I think it’s clear that you’ve at least somewhat read about this criticism and simply dismissed it. Without sufficient justification, in my opinion.
Likewise, your confidence in false rape statistics because of this increasing body of research is misplaced, since this body of research relies on the same methodology: an accusation is true unless proven false.
Repeating studies and getting the same results just bolsters claims of precision, not claims of accuracy.
What is your point? So it’s not P-in-V ‘rape’. It’s still unwanted sexual assault. It’s still unacceptable. It’s still a travesty. It still must be addressed. The incidences of false reporting are still minuscule, though they too are an unacceptable travesty that must be addressed.
What are you trying to prove? What are you trying to gain?