Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Polling...

How accurate are polls? Have you ever been polled? If so, did you answer 100% the way you really feel? I've never been polled myself, I guess possibly a few have called, but after the "Hello, I'm with XYZ Marketing company" I say "I'm not interested, thanks!" and then hang up never listening to whatever the response might be. I would think that you could do a poll and make it say whatever you wanted it to. Yet they claim that they are 'scientific' and the margin of error is +/-3 or 4 or whatever...

Says who? If you ask 1,000 people a question, how can you be within a margin of error of +/-3? Hello! There are what, 300 million people living in this country? There are companies though that make fortunes by 'providing' the polling data, Zogby comes to mind, Rasmussen as well. What makes their polling data so 'scientific'? I say just about any poll you read is skewed to the leanings of whoever ordered the poll. Maybe I'm misinformed, I doubt it though, maybe someone can enlighten me...
Posted by at

7 comments:

Joshua Goodling said...

Polls are just another way for the liberal news media to push their agenda. Even if they polled a million people on an issue that wouldn't give them any clue as to how the "Entire" country feels about something. There are WAY too many factors (i.e., religion, political persuasion, personal opinions, culture, area of the country the person was raised...etc., etc.,).

I always feel like hitting someone over the head when they way; "95% of Americans feel.... We polled 1000 people" They have more of a chance of getting what the average American feels if they polled a bunch of toy poodles at a pet shop, and yet they act like what they are saying is fact.

2/20/2007 6:37 PM
Matthew said...

Yeah, I'm with you... I would actually say that the people who actually answer pollsters questions, likely have no life and are probably so stupid that the polls can't possibly be accurate...

2/20/2007 6:59 PM
Petra said...

Yeah, from what I can tell - most people that take polls, only poll people who are going to respond in their favor.

I saw a documentary on Kinsey (the sex book guy from like 50 years ago)... he did his polls about sex in America and how everyone was so much more wild than they let on, and published his book on it and everyone believed it - except the people he polled were mostly immoral - he couldn't get the moral people to even take his polls so they weren't included, and that information did not come out until years after the sexual 'revolution' that he started because of his "polls".

2/20/2007 9:07 PM
Tim said...

After taking statistics, even the professor will tell you that there is not reality to the polls. It all depends on the demographics, people's honesty, etc.

2/21/2007 7:19 AM
Matthew said...

Yeah, exactly, it's stunning though how many people 'rule by the polls' though, particularly when they are probably so inaccurate, we likely don't even realize by how much...

2/21/2007 5:03 PM
Matthew said...

Yeah Petra, Kinsey was a quack, and his 'studies' I think were criminal... I think he was a sexual deviant who used his 'studies' to satisfy his bizarre sexual cravings...

2/21/2007 5:05 PM
Petra said...

Yeah - Kinsey was definitely full of issues. The documentary was pretty interesting... they showed people that hated him and people that loved him... even interviewed his children. Wow. I can't believe so many ppl listened to him!

2/21/2007 5:42 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)