Saturday, March 17, 2012

Sobering News

An easy way to get depressed this week has been to pay attention to the news. Mind you, I suppose that's true of any week you care to mention.

I was startled this afternoon to hear some figures about the incidence of rape and assaults of a sexual nature on women, these being discussed in a decently sober, sensible manner on Sky News. (Why the Murdoch-owned British Sky News is vastly superior to his dreadful Fox News is one of life's more refreshing mysteries.) I assume the figures related to women in the UK and they made for some very discomforting reflections. One in ten women said they'd been raped and almost a third of all women sexually assaulted.

Now the figures came with plenty of controversy attached, and it struck me that I'd certainly like to hear or read more debate as to their veracity, but even so. If they come reasonably close to reflecting reality then that reality is even more depressing than I had begun to imagine.

It strikes me that this would make a good topic for a TOK presentation, assuming the presenter were genuinely interested in establishing some degree of precision regarding the generating and handling of the data and not merely in attitudinising.

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