Lying with Numbers

Paul Mirengoff, who blogs at Power Line, takes apart a Washington Post scare statistic on campus sexual predation and finds there is likely less there than meets the eye. The study finds one coed in five has experienced some form of unwanted attention of a sexual nature.

Unfortunately lots of stuff not reaching the actionable level may be included, there is no way to be sure. "Stuff" of the drunk-collegian-comes-on-to-a-coed-who-isn't-interested variety. Kids drink to lower inhibitions, quite often to tasteless levels. It happens, it's normal, if excruciatingly awkward at times, and it's occasionally tragic.

The WaPo study was designed to produce scary numbers, not to help us understand the dimensions of such behavior. As such it isn't research but rather number-decorated feminist propaganda.