Can we trust these recent polls??????

M

Mantas

New member
I thought that the CBS poll was rather interesting when compared to the CNN/USA Today poll.

The CBS poll said:

Less than one in twenty(<20%) Americans named the availability of weapons, the Internet, or exposure to violence on television, in movies or in video games as reasons why the shooting occurred.

Yet its funny that the famed ant-gun CNN/USA Today poll cited availability of firearms as the problem.

Here is the The question and answers from their poll:

Which of the following have a 'great deal' of blame for the shootings? (Respondents were allowed to name more than one).

Availability of guns 60%
Parents 51%
TV, movies, music 49%
Social pressures on youth 43%
Internet 34%
Media coverage of similar incidents 34%
Schools 11%

P.S. Although they are different types of polls the availability of guns, Internet, and TV were less than 20% for the CBS poll while the same reasons get 149% on the CNN/USA Today poll. Am I the only one who smells something fishy with these media supergiants?

Full results can be found at:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/poll016.htm

http://www.cbs.com/prd1/now/template.display?p_story=147406&p_who=network
 
Nick...

Honestly ask yourself if you feel you are so out of touch with other people that you don't know how people think, even if they have opposing views.
Now, the poll results that really surprise you is the one that is likely suspect.

Lets use Clinton as an example....do you really believe that during the height of impeachment, when all the lurid details were exposed, 70% of the populace favored him? Alot of folks are apathetic, so I can believe that perhaps there wasn't a great feeling among Joe Average to impeach and dismiss him...but no way was there that much active support and favor.

From your 2 examples I'd say that CBS is more accurate. I speak from experience: CNN will lie and falsify...they did it routinely on the message boards by deletions, favoritism and selected banning. The moderator of the Gun board was a San Francisco housewife, an admitted liberal, non-gun experienced and didn't see a "need" for guns.


Also...this is the outfit that starred Peter Arnett, a known liar, for over 10 yrs

------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"



[This message has been edited by DC (edited April 23, 1999).]
 
Actually, at the public college I attend, I have jumped into numerous discussions/arguments about the massacre near Denver. Although it is impossible to tell how other people think, I would argue till my dying breathe that I'm not "out of touch" with anything in society, I invest a great amount of my time in my schooling, my social settings, and by collecting as much local, national, and world news as I can. Coincidentally, my Psychology instructor(Ph.D. from UofMichigan) was talking to me after class today about the recent incident and it is his theory that in today’s society people try to pass the buck just like politicians have been doing since the beginnings of democracy. People would rather get a quick fix from government(censorship and/or gun control) and go to work or school and go on their vacations and basketball games and assume that the quick fix works, instead of addressing real problems in society that government legislation has no control over. Who gets screwed and what gets fixed in this process? Well actually anybody who uses or relies on anything that the quick fix has infringed upon losses and the fix never works, that is, the problem that the quick fix was supposed to solve still exists. I tend to agree with most of his theories on the way society THINKS, although I will say again it is impossible to know how people think, no matter how "in touch" you are with other people, this is all in theory.

Now that I got that out, all that my original post was trying to say is exactly what the subject suggests: "Can we trust these recent polls??????"
 
In a nutshell....

No

They aren't conducted to rigorous scientific standards, in terms of the polling sample population, numbers, demographic population, etc.

------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
Hey, remember how back in Russia everyone was in favor of the Commies? Same deal here...

Sheesh, I wish all these leftists would just move to North Korea...
 
Nick, today I called a former statistics professor at ASU regarding this very subject. Left a voice mail for him, and hope we can talk in the next few days. And, I want to ask him about the CNN poll.

The USA Today / CNN poll says Results are based on telephone interviews with 659 national adults, ages 18 or older, conducted April 21, 1999. Margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. No-answer and don't know responses are excluded.

When I took statistics, I recall there was an accepted, mathematical formula to calculate a sample size based upon the size of a population. I wonder if we have any TFL members sharp enough on statistics to explain to us how phone discussions with 659 adults can tell us how 272 million Americans feel about anything? Wow. It just doesn't seem logical.

Any statisticians out there?
 
Cornered Rat,

Hundreds and maybe thousands of American Leftists immigrated to the Soviet Union back in the '20's to help build the socialist worker's paradise on Earth. I think less than five survived the demise of Stalin. Talk about being hoist on their own petard. Maybe we should contact contemporary American Marxists and Leftists, encourage them that their dreams of utopia are within their grasp in North Korea, and raise money for their immigration. It makes a wonderful image in my mind's eye.
 
I agree with DC's assessment of polls. Unless the actual data is released for review by independent researchers, there is no real way to verify any intent, bias, or selectivity of the data or the original questions. The biggest problem with polls is that an old saying comes to mind. There are three kinds of lies. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Case in point:

Pollster: "Excuse me, we're conducting a poll wondering if Americans are in favor of harsher penalties for criminals committing felonies with illegal firearms?"

John Q. Citizen: " Well, sure, I guess so."

Two weeks later...
Pollster: "Results from a recent poll indicate that a majority of Americans support stronger gun laws."

Huh? Where the hell did that come from?

------------------
Don LeHue

The pen is mightier than the sword...outside of arms reach. Modify radius accordingly for rifle.

[This message has been edited by DonL (edited April 24, 1999).]
 
Re: "Rigorous scientific standards."

Since polling is a pseudo-science, no such standards exist.

Believe nothing you see in polls.

------------------
Dubitando ad veritatem venimus.
 
I didn't feel like reading the whole thread, so I apologize is this has already been said but polls are crap. the numbers all depend on how the question is asked, and the results mean different things when stated differently. like
condoms will protects you 90% of the time.
this seems to say that condoms are good
but,
condoms break 10% of the time.
make one think that condoms are not a good thing.
both statements present the same information, but depending on the agenda of the group using the information, they will use one or the other
 
Chink: That's exactly it. I saw an expose in the WSJ a few months back. What they do is run polls with a wide variety of wordings, and question orders, and then use the form which gives them the answer they wanted. Yes, the polls ARE scientific and reliable, in the sense that if you ask the same biased question of a similar group of people, you'll get about the same meaningless answer. They are NOT scientific in the sense of measuring public opinion. During the impeachment battle, for instance, they had polls which had 60-70% of the public favoring Clinton's removal, and JUST DIDN'T PUBLISH THEM.

To give an example, last night on CNN they cited a poll which had 60% of the public favoring gun control, and 11% who wouldn't vote for anyone who didn't support gun control. Scientific? No, propaganda. They didn't mention, after all, how many people would not vote for anyone who SUPPORTS gun control. Not an irrelevant point, for any poll driven politican!
 
chink and Brett have good points. It's as much what they don't report, as what they actually do. Time magazine has done various anti-2nd Amendment rights articles in the past, tossing in small "statistical" blurbs in the borders or in breaks or boxes in the text of the articles, and they are absolutely meaningless inside or outside the context of the article. For example, they might say something like, "33% of people polled said that they would favor stronger gun control laws". They never mentioned that 55% said they opposed stronger gun control laws, and 11% were sitting on the fence with their thumbs up their asses.

Without full disclosure of all statistical data and actual wording of the questions, I have seen no polls that I can remember that wouls stand up to any real scientific scrutiny. Junk science sucks, and basing legislation on junk science is absolutely insidious.

------------------
Don LeHue

The pen is mightier than the sword...outside of arms reach. Modify radius accordingly for rifle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top