Quote:
Originally Posted by aceventura3
If it is raining, I don't check with a weatherman for him to tell me its raining. And if it is raining and he saz it ain't raining, I won't believe him. I don't care about his education, his scientific approach or whatever. That is how I live, call me what you will.
|
Right, well, in the context of your analogy, your refusal to use national poll results in favor of your own personal poll results is akin to looking outside your window to see what the weather is like in the rest of the nation.
Quote:
|
Also, on many of the polls there is a need to drill down. If a response is - its the economy. If you drill down with a follow-up you may find some real answers. Most polls in my view are superficial and are agenda driven. If you put blind faith in them - If I were you I would pause and reflect on that rather than attacking me.
|
Nobody should put blind faith in anything. However, you must realize that simply saying "I don't trust polls" isn't all that useful a response. Polls should be viewed critically based on objective criteria and one's best judgment. For instance, who funded the poll? Has the polling organization released the raw data? Have they released the questions used? Is their methodology sound? Is the sample representative of the population to which its results are inferred? How accurate have the polling organization's past polls been? Are there any recent events which might render these results obsolete? These are all good questions to ask.
There are a lot of ways that polls can be wrong, but to dismiss them all with a casual wave doesn't make sense if your goal is to understand how your fellow citizens feel about things. This is especially true when your alternative (a small sample of man on the street interviews?) is likely as -if not more- flawed than the polls you criticize. That is why I "attacked" you. Because you presented yourself as being above the trivial nonsense being peddled by pollsters while apparently failing to realize that your methods were likely as or less reliable.