[ExI] If 90% of all rapists are men, are 90% of all men rapists?/was Re: Deuteronomy Chapter 13

[Dan]

--- On Wed, 6/10/09, Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 09 June 2009 5:08:46 pm
> Samantha  Atkins wrote:
> > > But when you realize that these non-believers
> include atheists,
> > > muslims, gays,
> > > transgendered, liberals, minorities,
> abortionists, and other
> > > traditional
> > > enemies of the religious right, you will see that
> the killings
> > > already happen
> > > almost regularly.
> >
> > I don't think they do.  Please point out actual
> murder stats by
> > category tied to religious/political views of the
> assailant.
> 
> Please specify exactly what you are disputing, before I
> waste time trying to 
> find statistics.  Do you dispute that abortion doctors
> get killed by 
> christians?  Or that gays get killed by
> christians?  Or that virtually all 
> white-supremacist groups are biblically based?
> 
> Or are you just arguing that these murders don't occur too
> "regularly" even 
> though they are not too uncommon?
> 
> There is plenty of evidence that some segments of
> christianity promote 
> violence.  Quibbling over the exact numbers is a red
> herring.

I'm not so sure.  If one is arguing from X is a S and some Ss do A, so X is likely to do A, then one must rely on some sort of probabilistic causal argument.  (Why?  Because not all Ss do A.  If they all did, then there'd be no argument, no?)

Your point about who kills abortion doctors and bashes gays and joins white supremacist groups reminds me of an argument I had with someone a long time ago over rape.  My interlocutor opined that since, IIRC, 90% of all (reported?) rapists were men, men were basically rapists.  This simply doesn't follow from that stat (let's say it's true and let's ignore issues of accurately reporting rape).  I told my interlocutor that 90% of all rapists were men didn't mean 90% (or even 50%) of all men were rapists.

Regards,

Dan