A reality check on Koss.

Let's get some numbers first.
Starting with the number of women in college.

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http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school/cps2001.html
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/school/cps2001/tab10.pdf

( note, the table legend says that the numbers are in thousands )

.TOTAL," 15,873 "

..Male,,,,,,,
...Total," 6,875 "

..Female,,,,,,,
...Total," 8,998 "

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Now lets get some numbers for rape.

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http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/pdf/2sectiontwo.pdf

Page  5(PDF) Page11 (page number): Forcible rapes: 0.8%

Page 23(PDF) Page29 (page number):

(I started with the table but added material from the text)

                           Trend
                           
                          Rate per  Per 100,000
Year  Number of Offenses  100,000   females      Arrests
----  ------------------  --------  -----------  -------
2001              90,863      31.8         62.6     
2002              95,136      33.0         64.8   28,288

percent change     +4.7%     +3.6%        +3.5%
 
  Definition Forcible rape, as defined in the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) 
  Program, is the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.
  Assaults or attempts to commit rape by force or threat of force are also 
  included; however, statutory rape (without force) and other sex offenses 
  are excluded.

There was no conviction data in this report.

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OK, the numbers (and sources) are above.

Let's look at Koss's numbers.

She reports that 27% of all female college students had been
the vicitms of rape or attempted rape.

I've not seen anyone claim that the situation is different today,
so I'll use todays (or actually 2001) data. I just happen to have
all the numbers for 2001.

27% of 8,998,000 is 2,429,460.

Koss asserts that 2.5 million female college students have been
the victims of rape or attempted rape.

The FBI says that the number is 90,863 nationwide.

Anyone note a small discrepancy?

The number of reported rapes and attempted rapes nationwide is 
90,863/2,429,460 = 3.8% of the number Koss reports for college 
campuses alone.

Anyone interested in keeping things real (sorry Kate) must conclude
that there is something vastly wrong with at least one of the numbers.

Depending on the methodology used, and the sampling used, research
can (and does) give vastly different results. And in the case of rape,
many surveys *have* given vastly different results. But when the
discrepancies are so large, you need to consider that they may well
be measuring different things, or there may be sampling problems.
Self-selected samples are one way to get extreme results. 

I note that the FBI, like Koss, reports rapes and attempted rapes
together, the text says that 91% were rapes and the rest attempts.
This, of course, has the appearance of inflating the number of rapes.

I've seen Kate's web page, and she jumps through flaming hoops
defending Koss's numbers, numbers so extreme as to cause any
thinking man to pause, but sadly not many women.

Is rape a problem? Yes.

Are false rape reports a problem? Yes.

Irrespective of the numbers, both are affronts to everything that 
is right and just. Kate seeks to minimize false rape reports to
insignificance, she simply ignores or denies all the evidence for
a high incidence. If Kate thinks false rape reports are a problem,
she hides it well.

Koss's numbers are ridiculous, regardless of any rhetoric to support
it. In SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) there is
something known as the Fermi paradox. It asks the musical question,
if there are all these intelligent ET's, where are they? I posit
the Koss paradox. If all these rapes are occuring, where are they?
Where is the evidence for their existence? The FBI does not have
the evidence for all these rapes. 

No rhetorical arguments about Koss's questions or methodology will
create these 2.5 million rapes on college campuses. Show me that these
rapes actually exist Kate.

Rich