- Sep 12, 2008
- 14,201
- 3,567
- 185
we have been teasing Rdean about his 6% of scientists hooey for a long time. It turns out this is a poll of AGW true believers done by the Pew Research Society.
if you poll a small population of interested folks about a tangential topic, you may get interesting correlation. For example, if you polled a group of scientologists about psychiatry, you might get some interesting answers from your poll. Extrapolating them to the general population would not be useful.
Rdean takes a sample of folks who have a vested interest in a particular fraud, takes a poll of them that establishes that this particular set of fraudsters have a small set of republicans in them and extrapolates that all persons with a high education level agree with this small set of crooks.
taking a poll of snake oil salesmen does not give you a good understanding of the beliefs of those in the pharmacy industry generally. Taking a poll of AGW types does not give us a good indication of the beliefs of all persons engaged in all branches of science.
I don't know the political affiliations of all PHDs in all branches of physics, chemistry, geology, etc. But to say that you can guess this by polling a self selected collection of grifters in lab coats is disingenuous.
if you poll a small population of interested folks about a tangential topic, you may get interesting correlation. For example, if you polled a group of scientologists about psychiatry, you might get some interesting answers from your poll. Extrapolating them to the general population would not be useful.
Rdean takes a sample of folks who have a vested interest in a particular fraud, takes a poll of them that establishes that this particular set of fraudsters have a small set of republicans in them and extrapolates that all persons with a high education level agree with this small set of crooks.
taking a poll of snake oil salesmen does not give you a good understanding of the beliefs of those in the pharmacy industry generally. Taking a poll of AGW types does not give us a good indication of the beliefs of all persons engaged in all branches of science.
I don't know the political affiliations of all PHDs in all branches of physics, chemistry, geology, etc. But to say that you can guess this by polling a self selected collection of grifters in lab coats is disingenuous.
