The Joy of Polls and Surveys

We humans like to be part of a group, a tribe, a neighborhood, a town, state or country. Naturally, who wouldn't? Strength in numbers and all that. But I hate statements, surveys, polls, and studies that purport to speak for "Americans," or "Republicans," single-fathers or the overweight etc. There's just too many of us.

270 million adult Americans, leaving 40+ million children and youth. Have you ever heard anyone speak authoritatively for those millions of folks, male or female? Or for any age group? I sure haven't, not yet, except MAYBE once every 10 years when it MAY come close. It seems that coming close to speaking for all Americans was the 11th U.S. Census, taken by Hollerith and his punch card machines in 1890, the father (in my eyes), of modern data processing some 60-70 years later. And the Census gathers facts -- not opinions.

So pollsters who say, "40% of Americans believe Obama is doing a decent job," or TV announcers, or pundits . . .  are all outright lying to you.  I believe Obama's popularity rating's even higher right now, more than 4 times Congress' so-called popularity, but we'll never know. Never know exactly. 

No one poll represents more than a few thousand people when making such statements. If they're a decent poll like Gallup or Pew, they'll tell you how many Americans they actually spoke with in the small print after the headline statements and data are shared. Take Gallup on 10/7/13: "Americans now give Congress a job approval rating of 11%, down eight percentage points from last month and one point above the worst rating in Gallup history. Democrats' approval of Congress has dropped to 5%."

The small print:
"Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Oct. 3-6, 2013, with a random sample of 1,028 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia."  Even tho I agree with the headline and find it believable, only 1,028 Americans polled! But Gallup's headline shown was also terribly, unforgivably, misleading. On its face, its somewhere between misinformation and disinformation.

There are polls I do like, like this statement from Forbes in its 10/13/13 article: "But a new poll of 1,976 registered voters finds that only 33 percent believe that the health law should be repealed, delayed, or defunded." So 652 voters actually stated that. 652!  I can believe it; at least Forbes was upfront and truthful!  And we'll never know of course, how many of those 652 were lying or felt coerced by party pressure to take that position.

So I don't trust or believe polls or surveys that speak for one group, any group, unless they've polled all its members, which is nigh impossible. This is also why scientific studies of drug testing on humans have all those disclaimers; its a small sample, and just extrapolate those symptoms to millions of people! Of course they better have all those disclaimers, lawyers, and deep pockets.

That's my point, be careful believing that stuff -- it's just not true, or even close. It's all really a guessing game, a show.

Are there any polls you've gotten a kick out of lately?

by Rodney Richards
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