(I missed this before, but an additional criticism is that the 6% figure comes from a study by David Lisak. Lisak is known for fraudulent academic conduct. We should not only doubt his results, but we should note that this entire field has extremely broken incentives, and suspect all sensationalist studies emerging from it for cooking their books or falsifying data.)
Your sources are contradicting your own points. If the data for these surveys didn’t come from Lisak, and was not originally part of a study on sexual violence, then it’s just nonsensical to presume that the data is skewed because it’s feminist.
If the data for these surveys didn’t come from Lisak … then it’s just nonsensical to presume that the data is skewed because it’s feminist
Agreed—but I still think we should be concerned about the quality of the data. The linked article suggests that Lisak’s study was assembled from other studies which he’s apparently unable to cite, which weren’t especially careful about the data they collected, and which probably aren’t representative of most college campuses.
Nothing in that article suggests that the data was low quality
I think the fact that Lisak literally cannot remember where his data comes from should be concerning.
That’s irrelevant here, because the number here is being used as a representation of men in EA, not men on college campuses.
Good point—I’ll instead say then that these numbers are likely specific to the particular population of that college and are even less likely to be useful for making inferences about the EA community as a whole. Lisak himself says of the study:
“Because of the nonrandom nature of the sampling procedures, the reported data cannot be interpreted as estimates of the prevalence of sexual or other acts of violence.”
Your sources are contradicting your own points. If the data for these surveys didn’t come from Lisak, and was not originally part of a study on sexual violence, then it’s just nonsensical to presume that the data is skewed because it’s feminist.
Agreed—but I still think we should be concerned about the quality of the data. The linked article suggests that Lisak’s study was assembled from other studies which he’s apparently unable to cite, which weren’t especially careful about the data they collected, and which probably aren’t representative of most college campuses.
Nothing in that article suggests that the data was low quality, just that some of them might not have been traditional college students.
That’s irrelevant here, because the number here is being used as a representation of men in EA, not men on college campuses.
I think the fact that Lisak literally cannot remember where his data comes from should be concerning.
Good point—I’ll instead say then that these numbers are likely specific to the particular population of that college and are even less likely to be useful for making inferences about the EA community as a whole. Lisak himself says of the study:
“Because of the nonrandom nature of the sampling procedures, the reported data cannot be interpreted as estimates of the prevalence of sexual or other acts of violence.”