EVIDENCE

Evaluating Evidence



SUPER BOWL XXVII;
Violence Translates at Home


The New York Times, January 31, 1993.

If Super Bowl tradition holds, more women than usual will be battered today in their homes by the men in their lives; it seems an inevitable part of the post-game show. A big football game on television invariably becomes the Abuse Bowl for men conditioned by the sports culture to act out their rage on someone smaller.

Domestic violence expected to rise because of Super Bowl

Star Tribune, January 31, 1993.

For some women, Super Bowl Sunday means abuse;
Super Bowl Sunday brings abuse for some.


The Hartford Courant, January 30, 1993

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY LEADS TO BATTERED WIVES,
SAY ACTIVISTS


Orlando Sentinel Tribune, January 30, 1993

The Logic


The "Evidence"


Debunking the 'Day of Dread' for Women;
Data Lacking for Claim of Domestic Violence Surge After Super Bowl


The Washington Post, January 31, 1993
Ken Ringle, Washington Post Staff Writer


As the beer cools and the testosterone surges on this mega-day of
professional football, a network of feminist activists has orchestrated a
national campaign to ask males to stop beating their wives and girlfriends after
the Super Bowl.

In an effort to combat what the Associated Press and CBS have labeled a "day
of dread" for women, the organizers have prevailed on NBC, broadcaster of the
Super Bowl, to air a public service announcement against wife-beating before
tonight's big game. "Domestic violence is a crime," the announcer intones.

Despite their dramatic claims, none of the activists appears to have any
evidence that a link actually exists between football and wife-beating. Yet the
concept has gained such credence that their campaign has rolled on anyway,
unabated. Last week, it produced:A news conference near Super Bowl Central in
Pasadena, Calif., declaring Super Bowl Sunday "the biggest day of the year for
violence against women. "

Tale of fanatic abusers became the Great Super Bowl Hoax


The Tampa Tribune January 28, 1995

DAVID R. BOLDT

It was a slow news day in late January of 1993.

Ken Ringle, a reporter in the Washington Post's Style section, was trolling
through wire-service stories, seeking items for his annual roundup of offbeat
items, when a detail in a story on a feminist news conference decrying the
battering of women on Super Bowl Sunday caught his eye.

One of the spokeswomen cited a study done at Old Dominion University that she said showed emergency-room admission for battered women rising 40 percent following Washington Redskin victories.

Now this, Ringle thought, was news.


Curious, he called one of the researchers at Old Dominion and read her the
wire story. "That's not what we found at all," she told him. And though he
didn't fully realize it at the time, Ringle had just stumbled onto one of the
great media hoaxes of our day.

But the second phenomenon was that evidence supporting the "Day of Dread" hypothesis instantly disintegrated when checked. Experts said they had been misquoted; studies turned out not to exist. But Ringle kept at it. "I figured that with all this smoke, there must be some fire," he says. "I never imagined that it was all made up."

Many of the reports ultimately cited Walker, the Denver psychologist. In an
interview Thursday, she said her "report" was "informal" and never written down. (She also said she couldn't discuss the matter at length because she was busy preparing to testify in behalf of O.J. Simpson.)

Tests of Evidence


The Use of Polls


The New York Times

























Evidence
Norms for Critical Thinking
Orderliness