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Notes -
Most of your post made some excellent points but I feel the final paragraph was not necessary, kind, nor true.
Yes, the infographic was removed from that page over the years. Here’s a picture of the infographic. As an aside, when Amanda Marcotte (a radical left-wing feminist, if you ask me) says the infographic is wrong, there probably are methodological issues with it.
Yes, I linked to that study, but since I linked to a contradicting study, I think it’s more fair and reasonable to conclude I don’t have an opinion either way than me making an “implication of equivalent credibility”. My general view is that I am not qualified to have a strong opinion on the issue, [1] although like you I think concluding only 0.2% of rape accusations are false is probably an emotional appeal which doesn’t survive cold logic (and even Amanda Marcotte feels that way, for the record). But I credit the Enliven project for at least showing their homework; most social media graphs like this are completely made up.
The only opinion I have is that there are enough false rape accusations out there that people accused of rape deserve due process and presumption of innocence, not this “believe all women” nonsense.
Something about that study, however, elicited a very intense emotional reaction from you, as evidenced by the bad faith accusations such as “throwing out links without reading them”.
When I read the entire PBS article, as I did when it first came out, my impression was that it discredited Reade’s accusation because, logistically, it just wasn’t possible for Biden to assault her that way in the place she claimed to have been assaulted.
The sense I get from other posters is a negative emotional reaction to PBS, since PBS is a “blue tribe” source of information, and some people here have a negative emotional reaction to any and all “blue tribe” sources. In the particular case of the Reade accusations, PBS had to present a strong case that Reade was full of it, but they had to, since their audience when they wrote that article had a large number of “believe all women” readers, do so in a way without directly contradicting the “believe all women” mantra, which is why the article presents a lot of evidence without making stronger conclusions.
Indeed, one thing I notice is that when I support the red tribe here, I get upvoted, but when I support the blue tribe, I get downvoted. I don’t think it’s helpful to be an echo chamber for either side, but since most places default to left-of-center opinions (where I often get downvoted and/or buried when I question blue tribe talking points), I also come here to try and get a balanced world view, ideally without excessive emotion.
[1] I do have strong opinions on other issues, such as the claim that 80% of the women sleep with 20% of the men, but that’s an issue I have researched deeply enough to have a strong opinion about.
My final paragraph was being kind. It was a description of my own (conditional) internal state, so I can verify it was true. Its necessity is left to the judgment of the reader—though I note that none of what anyone posts here is strictly necessary in the barest sense (and yet...). I do appreciate you linking the infographic, but I cannot help but point out that if it was taken down from its original source and you had to instead link the graphic as part of an article written by a radical feminist saying that it tripped her BS detector in the direction opposite her biases and is probably crap, then it's probably not worth including it at all.
Casually linking to two studies and inviting people (in this case, me) to look at them and see which source is more reasonable in its methodology doesn't engender any particular conclusion other than that you didn't seem to have read them particularly carefully. That I had to click through to find that one of the (as-described) studies isn't a study, but instead yet another innumerate, made-up social media graph which added negative value to the discussion was, in a nutshell, the point of my post. I know the graph was made up, because Enliven did show their homework. I award them no points, and may God have mercy on their souls.
Touching briefly on the object level: I think we are in agreement on due process and presumption of innocence.
I'm not sure what the back half of your response (PBS? Upvotes? Your GitHub?) has to do with anything I said, but after reading through, I think you might be misinterpreting others' disagreement and skepticism as emotional reactions. While I can't speak to others' feelings or lack thereof, you did impute an intense emotional response to me, and I invite you to not do that again.
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