Photo by Keith Allison
In a recent opinion piece for The Washington Post, George Will decided to do a little math based on two “crucial and contradictory” statistics mentioned in the President’s recent report:
A. 20% of college women are sexually assaulted during their tenure at the university, and
B. 12% of rapes are reported to law enforcement
His overall message is that, clearly, women are lying about being assaulted to gain the “privilege” of victimhood, based on this mathematical argument:
The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous. Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute notes, for example, that in the four years 2009 to 2012 there were 98 reported sexual assaults at Ohio State. That would be 12 percent of 817 total out of a female student population of approximately 28,000, for a sexual assault rate of approximately 2.9 percent — too high but nowhere near 20 percent.
Or, to put it into math equations:
98 reported assaults (at Ohio State) = 12% of the assaults that occurred
98 / 0.12 = 817 (total assaults)
817 / 28,000 = 0.029;
which means only 2.9% of the 28,000 female students at Ohio State have been assaulted.
Therefore, the 20% statistic is far too high, thus women must be lying about assault.
Here’s the thing: experimental design matters when it comes to statistics. There are several ways you can go wrong when interpreting statistics, any of which can be accounted for if you simply pay attention to the science that generated them—which George clearly didn’t. Continue reading “Science Matters: Why George Will’s Math Is Wrong”
