Okay, Kanin on college women making rape complaints (from False Rape Allegations, Eugene J. Kanin; Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23 (1994)):
Nope. The protestors have suggested that this incident is symptomatic of endemic white-on-black sexual violence that goes unpunished. If (as I suspect) the true incidence of white-on-black sexual violence is comparatively infinitessimal, then this would be relevant to two quite separate points:
(1) The justification for the protestors invoking race (which they, not I, raised first) as a relevant issue; and
(2) The statistical likelihood that a variety of attack that is comparatively very rare did, in fact, take place here.
As to (2), statistics are of course not conclusive proof of anything, and rare events do take place (rarely). I could not use the fact that men rarely bite dogs to prove that Joe Dokes did not bite your dog. I could, with complete justification, take it into account in deciding how much plausibility to afford to your story if, e.g., Joe’s DNA was nowhere to be found on Towser, etc., etc. Life is a series of probabilistic gambles, you know.
If you have read the articles about this case and do not have some of the same questions I do about the evidence, then I’m appalled. Nevertheless, for your edification, the point of listing some questions was simply to show that the articles upon which you have relied to reach your opinion are incomplete, and that there are lots of other things we ought to know before reaching a judgment. Perhaps ultimately you will be proven right, and it will conclusively be shown that the victim is nothing but a lying whore, as you so fervently seem to wish. On the other hand, perhaps as more of the facts are known, you will not seem so prescient.
My point is a bit different. While everything you posted might indeed be a “fact” I suggest that it is incomplete. For example, take this:
What does this mean? Does this mean no DNA was recovered? Does it mean that the DNA that was recovered excludes the team as donors? (I don’t think it can mean that, or that’s what the attorney would have said: “the DNA that was found is not my client’s DNA.”) Does it mean that the DNA that they found could not fully be matched, such that the probabilities are lower that the DNA found belonged to a team member?
Remember that DNA isn’t exact, and ought to be expressed in terms of probabilities (the FBI’s predilections notwithstanding). My point is simply that critical reading skills ought to be applied to the media articles, and this rush to judgment (in either direction) based on incomplete information is unseemly.
Don’t ascribe the OP’s words to me. And, all I “fervently wish” is that (1) people wouldn’t commit crimes and (2) people wouldn’t lie about crimes having been committed. One thing we can agree on (whatever happened here) is that those two precepts were not (both of them) consistently observed by all the participants in this sad scene, or we wouldn’t be where we are now.
Bolded sections, meet petitio principii.
I have still seen no affirmative evidence (your ratiocination to the effect that there ‘must have been some foreign DNA found or the defense would have said otherwise’ does not count as evidence). Since you condemn a “rush to judgment,” I don’t think Contrapuntal logically needs to answer your still-completely-hypothetical questions about some notional DNA “that was found” in order to defend his/her summary of the state of play.
It’s not that I disbelieve you, but can you supply a cite for this?
And also, crime statistics can not be used to determine the veracity of this particular allegation, which is why your posts strike me as being irrelevant. Probabilities belong in the realm of random events. So this…
is bullocks.
A fair question. Starting point:
http://www.topix.net/forum/city/raleigh-nc/TTAT8BR2CCODIT9ER
“Bullocks?” You still don’t understand what I am saying. Despite my disclaiimer that I did not intend to use statistics to “prove” or “disprove” anything, but that I would indeed use them to gauge how much credence to put in a particular improbable allegation, all you’ve done is point out what I conceded up front, that general statistics don’t “determine” specific cases. Nonetheless, from my perspective, this is a “random,” arbitrary instance of a rape allegation (i.e., it is one of the ‘n’ rape allegations that I will hear over my lifetime), and I will use what data are available to calibrate the seriousness and believability that I afford to it.
Okay, so “the protesters” are basically two people who have written stuff on the internet (and it’s not clear to me that the first was even saying what you said he said.) Thanks for that. I just wanted to know where you were getting your info from.
I get it what you are saying, and I’m saying that in a situation like this, you’re not going to be able to use any statistics to support what is plausible or not. Especially since you don’t have all the facts. It’s possible that the accuser is lying. It’s also possible that in the 3 days that occurred between the alleged crime and the investigation of the scene, the accused tampered/destroyed evidence. You don’t know. What’s plausible or not depends on the facts, many of which we don’t know.
Your stats about false rape accusations and your follow-up question about the stats on white-on-black rape have nothing to do with whether this person is lying. That’s really what I’m calling you out on.
Just wanted to point out what a bad idea this is. Just about the only way false accusations are found out is when the accuser recants. You would like to create a huge disincentive for the accuser to allow the victim to actually clear his name?
No, you don’t.
I believe that what he is getting at is this type of thing. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_statistics#In_the_courtroom
and unless you’re a statistician, or some kind of legal scholar, you probably don’t get it.
Essentially, in some cases, you need to rely on a priori probabilities of that crime being committed, and that a priori probability is determined by answering questions like “what are the rates for white on black rape?”
The answer to that question doesn’t really matter if there is another VERY UNLIKELY event that ties a person to the rape (like his DNA being inside her). But if there isn’t such an event like that, the a priori probability of that crime being committed should have a large effect on the determination of guilt.
I realize that this is just wrestling with a pig (albeit a pig who throws around fancy Latin crap to cover up the fact he doesn’t get it), but I’ll try one last time.
We know that the authorities attempted to collect DNA from the alleged victim. We know that the authorities sent what they collected to a lab. We know that DNA was collected from men accused of potentially assaulting her. We know that their DNA also was sent to a lab. We know that the results from the samples collected from the alleged victim were compared with the samples collected from the men accused of potentially assaulting her. We know that the lab did some analysis (what? don’t know) and released the results to the DA. We know that the DA gave those results to the attorneys representing the men accused of potentially assaulting her. We know that the attorneys for those men then gave a statement to the press in which they said variations on a theme: they can’t prove it was my client based on the DNA.
But what does that mean? Other than what the defense attorneys say, what actually were the test results? No one has released the actual test results. People with a vested interest have talked about the conclusions one can draw from the results, but so far, no one has said what the results themselves are.
Your posts have been variations on a theme: there are lots of false rape accusations. Defense attorneys for men accused of rape claim that the DNA test results don’t conclusively show that their clients raped her. Therefore she’s a liar. I bet there’s a fancy Latin phrase for what you can call an argument like that.
That would be the part where I said seems to occur. There’s no need to jump immediately to being an asshole. I’m not taking a position pro-accuser/anti-lacrosse-team, you know. I’m only anti-obnoxious-email-sender at this point, just because he was really gross.
You are saying that one is “not going to be able to use any statistics to support what is plausible or not” in ANY situation, then.
EVERY new occurrence is in some trivial or non-trivial way new or unique. The Sun rose today. It rose every other morning of my life, but who am I to say that those previous occurrences had anything to do with what would happen at 5:52 today? That’s not how any of us make our daily decisions and predictions.
In making plausibility determinations (which are a proxy for but are not identical to proof or fact determinations), we INEVITABLY draw on the past as prologue. To suggest that past outcomes in highly-analogous (but yes, “different”) cases have “nothing to do” with what is or isn’t plausible in a current fact pattern of the same genus and species is an interesting theoretical position – but purely from a jerkoff perspective, because that is not how anyone evaluates propositions or probabilities that are propounded to them. Most cogently, it is not how the prosecutor, judge, or any jury in a criminal case does or would or could evaluate propositions of uncertain credibility or likelihood.
That is because humans are born pattern-recognizers.
Prosecutorial and police resources are a limited commodity (as, in a different way, is human sympathy and outrage) and we would be profligate (perhaps, soon bankrupt) as to these commodities if we did not (by instinct) apply probabilistic discretion in deploying them, and did not accord greater weight to fact-patterns that had recurred before than to propositions whose fact-patterns were rare in history or our experience.
When this system works, justice is more often served than not:
“Hmm, she says she was kidnapped while jogging, sexually assaulted by a man and a woman, driven across country, then let loose. But, she’s also a nutcase Bridezilla. I’m not thinking this is very plausible, based on my having seen no incidents like what she alleges, but plenty of neurotic brides.” This or something like this obviously (eventually) went through the heads of those Georgia cops, and it’s a good thing or they’d still be looking for her “captors.”
Wouldn’t it be nice on the other hand if, say, the McMartin case prosecutors had exercised a little probabilistic discretion and said “Hmm, I suppose there could have been one or two recorded cases since the Dawn Of Time of ritual satanic abuse by clowns and devils but there’s no real track record of that being so common, maybe we won’t crucify the alleged perpetrators for what seems (statistically) to be an almost impossible occurrence?”
You’re right. I don’t get it. I don’t get how the rate of white-on-black rape should have any bearing on how likely it is that I, a black woman, am telling the truth when I say I’m raped by a white man. If it does, then the justice system is not only broken. It needs to be taken behind the shed and euthanized.
What’s the crime stats on double-homicide perpetrated by professional football players? Guess I should have asked that question during the OJ case.
Prosecutorial discretion, properly applied, would ameliorate that risk. Or put differently, by the same logic we should apply no or only a light penalty to any substantive crime when the “true” perp. initially denies but later confesses, because all such confessions will tend to draw improper blame away from other suspects (or other actually-convicted persons), and we don’t want to “disincentivize” these possibly-exculpating-of-others admissions. But we don’t take this approach when “real murderer Y” confesses so as to spring “wrongly convicted non-murderer X” (except, perhaps, by the prosecutor deciding on a discretionary basis to seek less than the maximum penalty for murder against Y, which will almost certainly not mean “a slap on the wrist.”).
guilty until proven innocent?
What country do you live in?
The more that comes out about this particular case, the more it looks like the accuser is not telling the truth. Now there are reports about discrepancies in the timelines of the 911 calls related to the case, and speculation that the publicized call from an unrelated person complaining that the partying lacrosse players shouted racial epithets at her may have been a hoax.
The proposition is that skepticism (from the general public or from prosecutors) is natural, and is neither illogical nor improper, when the event alleged (but not yet proven – remember, we are talking at the preliminary, triage, stage) is much less common, vis a vis when it is much more common. That’s how things work IRL, like it or not.
Even if it wasn’t perpetrated by the lacrosse team, evidence suggests that this women was raped by someone .
False rape allegations are pretty rare because of the nature of the crime and society’s tendecy to blame the victim (yes, victim ) as seen on this very board.
I remember in one article, the team said that she was intoxicated? Maybe someone thought that was a free pass, but having sex with someone who is drunk is ALWAYS rape, btw. They are no longer capable of giving consent.
There was a lot of pettiness and ripping the victim apart here, and that makes me sick. My best friend was raped her freshman year, and school dragged its feet about anything. Its finally going to court (arraignment tomorrow), and I hope the bastard gets what he deserves.
And yes, they are vicitms and survivors, not “alleged” anything, because that is crap. people who were alleged ly robbed, etc don’t have to get counseling for nightmares and irrational fears about daily activities and getting into a healthy relationship.
“Evidence?” And isn’t, um, the initial problem that she alleged on a stack of Bibles that it was the lacrosse team? Kind of an important “Oops, my bad,” no?
Cite? I’ve provided two suggesting that they are at a minimum 8% of instances and possibly as much as 50%. Your turn.
If she wasn’t raped, she is not a victim but is instead a victimizer. Have you even read this thread.
Then take a poll on here and see how many spouses and boyfriends and girlfriends we have all raped (and been reciprocally raped by). HINT: A definition of “rape” that would inculpate just about every sexually active person (or maybe, to be generous, you believe that only men can be rapists, so it’s only HALF the non-teetoaling population of Earth) is not as helpful to whatever cause you’re espousing as you may think.
HTF do you know what people who are “allegedly robbed” or robbed have nightmares about?
It makes a huge difference if there is no evidence he did it and he’s the one going to jail for your accusations.
Justice system may be broken, but what you’re saying here isn’t one of those ways.