Monthly Archives: December 2014

Rolling Stone, Washington Post, “false” allegations

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The decent social science supports the belief that only 2-8% of rape allegations are false (I can send it to you offline).FReport_graph

The graph above is part of a story about RS & false report claims in Mic.com. Well said.

Unfortunately, the errors being claimed in the Rolling Stone story will divert attention from the rape culture on the UVa campus. Note, before you follow that diversion, the number of other women who have come forward with fraternity rape accounts. Note also that the “inconsistencies” are collateral to the cause of the trauma, and well might be explained by the Neurobiology of Trauma.  See http://nij.gov/multimedia/presenter/presenter-campbell/Pages/welcome.aspx; and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py0mVt2Z7nc

Instead of an analysis of this Rolling Stone debacle, we will see the backlash from rape apologists, who claim that many (or most) rape allegations are false, based on either nothing at all, or the single poorly designed research report that claims just that.

If you look at the misogynistic comments to the Washington Post story on “inconsistencies”, you will note all the men citing Tawana Brawley, Duke lacrosse, and Lena Dunham as proof of the large number of false allegations. The big problem with that is that the can find just  THREE whole proven false reports since 1987! I think that alone shows the accuracy of this graphic and the social science supporting it.