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musicman said:General information for the board:
I'd like to recommend a great read. It's a book called, "It Ain't Necessarily So". Co-written by three scientists whose names elude me at the moment, it details how science is being manipulated in the name of a political agenda. These men always considered science safe from such perversions, dealing - as it does - with cold, hard, immutable truths. But, they've found, it's happening just the same.
There's a whole chapter on polling. Fascinating stuff.
OCA said:musicman said:Lies, damned lies, and POLLS. Load the questions, acheive the predetermined result. It's one of the dirtiest games being played today.
Lies????????????? What lies?????????? The poll question was one very simple question: do you agree or disagree with congressional involvement?
How the hell is that a damned lie or loaded question?
It occurs to me that I might owe you an explanation here, OCA. Looking at the post you addressed, I can see where you must have thought I'd finally gone off my coconut!
In a discussion I was having with SmarterThanYou, on another thread, I brought up Mark Twain, who, of course, said, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." In that context, I remarked that, if Twain were alive today, he'd probably substitute the word "polls" for "statistics".
musicman said:Danke schoen!
OCA said:Oh my, I love the calculated meanness :teeth:
musicman said:OCA said:The poll to which I'm referring is proof that the devil is in the details, or - in the case of the "art" of polling - the wording. This poll threw around words like "vegetable" and "life support" in a successful (apparently) attempt to load the result. According to the polling expert at Wall Street Weekly, public disapproval with Congress dropped - dramatically - in direct proportion to the increased quality of information given respondents.
These pollsters are sneaky bastards, OCA. In 1995, when "bad old Newt Gingrich and the mean-spirited Republican Congress" spoke of cutting funding for PBS, PBS itself conducted a poll. The question? "If funding for PBS were cut, who would suffer more - children or adults?" Objective, huh? That ranks right up there with, "Are you still beating your wife?" Whether or not ANYONE would suffer is not even considered; that children and adults will suffer is a given - it is now only a matter of the specific degree.
Polling has become so underhanded and agenda-serving that the first thing I want to know is, who's conducting this thing - followed by, what outcome would they like to see from this poll - then, what have they done to help us see it their way? May I see the precise wording used, and the statistics-gathering methodology employed? It's usually pretty enlightening.
This seemed on topic:
http://www.lifenews.com/printpage.php
Zogby Poll: Americans Not in Favor of Starving Terri Schiavo Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 1, 2005
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Polls leading up to the death of Terri Schiavo made it appear Americans had formed a consensus in favor of ending her life. However, a new Zogby poll with fairer questions shows the nation clearly supporting Terri and her parents and wanting to protect the lives of other disabled patients.
The Zogby poll found that, if a person becomes incapacitated and has not expressed their preference for medical treatment, as in Terri's case, 43 percent say "the law presume that the person wants to live, even if the person is receiving food and water through a tube" while just 30 percent disagree.
Another Zogby question his directly on Terri's circumstances.
"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.
A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.
"From the very start of this debate, Americans have sat on one of two sides," Concerned Women for America's Lanier Swann said in response to the poll. One side "believes Terri's life has worth and purpose, and the side who saw Michael Schiavo's actions as merciful, and appropriate."
More than three-fourths of Americans agreed, Swann said, "because a person is disabled, that patient should never be denied food and water."
The poll also lent support to members of Congress to who passed legislation seeking to prevent Terri's starvation death and help her parents take their lawsuit to federal courts.
"When there is conflicting evidence on whether or not a patient would want to be on a feeding tube, should elected officials order that a feeding tube be removed or should they order that it remain in place," respondents were asked.
Some 18 percent said the feeding tube should be removed and 42 percent said it should remain in place.
Swann said her group would encourage Congress to adopt legislation that would federal courts to review cases when the medical treatment desire of individuals is not known and the patient's family has a dispute over the care.
"According to these poll results, many Americans do in fact agree with what we're trying to accomplish," she said.
The poll found that 49 percent of Americans believe there should be exceptions to the right of a spouse to act as a guardian for an incapacitated spouse. Only 39 percent disagreed.
When asked directly about Terri's case and told the her estranged husband Michael "has had a girlfriend for 10 years and has two children with her" 56 percent of Americans believed guardianship should have been turned over to Terri's parents while 37 percent disagreed.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
The Shame of ABC: I hadn't realized that the surprising ABC poll about the Schiavo case--showing overwhelming anti-tube sentiment--was so badly worded and biased. (For one thing, it deceptively tells pollees that Terri Schiavo is on "life support." * For another, it leads with the flat assertion that "Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible."**) Michelle Malkin and "Captain Ed" Morrissey are onto the ABC poll. ... Malkin, Morrissey and Powerline also raise doubts about that clumsy Republican talking points memo that ABC's Linda Douglass first trumpeted. I'm not so sure that you'd expect a letterhead on such a hastily-drawn memo, or even the correct bill title. It's not like it's a blog or something formal! It's less clear that the memo was written by anyone in the GOP leadership as opposed to a pro-life lobbying group, as Malkin points out. Yet unless you listened very carefully to Douglass' slyly worded report you got the distinct impression that it was a Republican leadership document. (ABC's own web site headlined the story "GOP Talking Points on Terri Schiavo ") [Update: Powerline confirms epistemological fishiness of the memo as a "GOP" doc.] ... Anyway, why should it be news--obscuring the actual merits of the case--that politics is involved in federal legislation? The civil rights movement was a political constituency too. ... ABC's performance during this whole story --starting with its sneering Friday coverage--has been pretty much a disgrace. ...
*Update--Many readers have pointed out that a feeding tube is defined as "life support" by at least one medical authority. But using the word at the start of a poll of laypersons conjures up far more elaborate support systems--e.g. heart and lung machines. If not "false"--as this post originally characterized it--the phrase is highly misleading. (I disagree with MP on this. The question is not whether the phrase is technically defensible, but whether it's reasonably calculated to produce an accurate poll of what people think. It's no defense to say, as ABC's Gary Langer does, that the language was taken from the very court decision that is the point of controversy. A court, even in its outline of "facts," is going to use language that buttresses its conclusion.)
**--Dr. Krauthammer, who winds up calling Congress' action a "travesty," nevertheless disagrees with the ABC poll's flat assertion on the issue of consciousness:
The husband has not allowed a lot of medical testing in the past few years. I have tried to find out what her neurological condition actually is. But the evidence is sketchy, old and conflicting. The Florida court found that most of her cerebral cortex is gone. But "most" does not mean all. There may be some cortex functioning. The severely retarded or brain-damaged can have some consciousness.
P.S.: I'm not saying a non-slanted poll would somehow reveal majority support for the pro-tube position. As MP notes, other surveys suggest widespread anti-tube sentiment. But, as far as I can see, no other poll has as large an anti-tube majority (63%) as ABC's. ... Update: Still true!CBS has now released another poll with a large anti-tube majority. The crucial question (#14) is prefaced with a run-up of hypotheticals locking respondents in to the concept of Michael Schiavo's spousal authority--but CBS's anti-tube majority (61%) still isn't as big as ABC's number. (Question #14 was only asked of a "partial sample." A second "partial sample" was asked a question ABC didn't ask about what should happen now: "Should the tube be reinserted ...?" That produced a larger (66%) anti-tube majority, perhaps because some people feel that the tube, once out, should stay out. For example, they might believe reinsertion could be painful. ... If you find CBS' sample-splitting confusing, you are not alone.) 11:32 A.M.
dilloduck said:Good article---sometimes I think Terri situation embodied a predicament that is at the very core of liberalism. A person who was not getting what she wanted and at the same time being tortured by the Goverment. Their desire that she get her way had to be muffled due to the fact that what she wanted was NOT some sort of orgasmic, fun filled freedom ! She wanted death. I think it was hard for them to hear themselves screaming "LET HER DIE". A haunting echo indeed.
OCA said:Dillo until you can get pass the "torture by government" junk.........screw it.
Kathianne said:Finding stuff like crazy on the polls:]
musicman said:What a great series of finds, Kathianne! Polling has become a nasty, foul-smelling business. How did the pollster himself put it? "You tell me how you want the poll to come out, and I'll write the questions". It's getting to where you can't trust anything you read anymore without a blood sample from the author.
Shattered said:How many people were in the room during the sampling? Is it really the authors blood?
Kathianne said:Want to try that question again, I'm missing something here.
Shattered said:That's because you're not very big on sarcasm. It was in reference to something MM said in the previous post about blood samples and truth.
Shattered said:How many people were in the room during the sampling? Is it really the authors blood?
Shattered said:How many people were in the room during the sampling? Is it really the authors blood?
musicman said:I see those being hurt as the liberals who - overnight - underwent the miraculous transformation into states-rights advocates. They did this for the same reason they do anything - political expediency. But what was convenient today is going to bite them on the ass - hard - in the very near future. How are they going to justify blocking the nomination of a strict constitutionalist judge tomorrow, in light of their rabid federalism today? They've shot themselves.
