@momoends,
Deciding whether statistics are valid are not is a lot more than organization.
This raises an interesting question... how do you tell if a set of statistics are scientifically valid. This is a good question to ask whenever you are given statistics in support of an argument. I ask the following questions.
1.
What was the study really measuring? Every study has a method of measuring what they are studying. In this case a study has to look at a woman's responses and determine if she is a victim of rape or not. The definition of rape used by the researchers is very important to the result.
2.
What was the population sample... was it big enough, was it representative? In this case you need to look at how they found people to respond to the study... if it is college students, or targets a certain race or a certain education level you will get different results.
3.
Is there selection bias in the sample? If a large number of people don't answer a survey... you have to ask why. Are the people who don't answer more likely to be people who never had a problem, or people who did have a problem. Any of these things can dramatically influence the results.
4.
What are the criticisms and contradictory results from other researchers? There are often two sides to a story. If you want to understand the actual result objectively you should listen to the other side to see if they have a valid criticism.
5.
What are the biases of the researchers? If the researchers are being paid by a political or business interest, they should self-report this. Of course if they are doing good science, it is still good science. But the bias of the researchers can influence results.
6.
How are the results being reported? Often the headlines and poster from political groups are misleading or even outright incorrect. They are claiming the research is saying one thing... but if you read the actual study done it says something else.
I believe that we should ask these questions whenever we are given statistics on any important topic... this is just about the rape statistics. You will notice that the organization is not on my list (although honestly there are some organizations, for example the FRC that make me assume that the research is bogus without even reading the study).