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From: prudence@trwrba.UUCP (Charles E. Prudence)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Will 15% of all women really be assaulted?
Message-ID: <887@trwrba.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Aug-84 16:06:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: trwrba.887
Posted: Mon Aug 13 16:06:29 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Aug-84 06:58:47 EDT
Organization: TRW EDS, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 18

[]
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