Re: Darwin, Britain's Hero, Is Still Controversial In U.S.


"Bruce Remick" <remick@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Mike Marotta" <mercury@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Feb 9, 3:29 pm, "Bruce Remick" <rem...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Makes one wonder about the level of education reached among the
people
polled, and how many had to be told who Darwin was before
responding to the question.

Bruce, that was why I went to the HARRIS POLL website. Harris,
Gallup, Pew and a couple of others are well-known for their
statistical reliability. The "level of education" can be expected
to
be statistically representative of the USA. They would be
representative for age, income, gender, race, etc. etc., all the
significant variables. That's what makes Harris, Gallup, etc.,
worth
paying for.

If you read the print edition of USA Today, you will see that their
polls often give the sample size, margin of error and confidence
level. If I recall my stats class, you need to have 1054 samples
to
be 95% confident with +/- 3% error.

I was pleasantly surprised to see all the hits when I googled
"statistics help."

Depending on where you live, you can probably take an accredited
statistics class at a community college for $350-$500. It will
take
13-15 weeks of commitment, but you will know way more than everyone
else about how polling is done and the mental exercise will help
stave
off senility.

I still would be interested in learning if Harris only counted a
response from individuals who already were familiar with Darwin and
his work.

Right away you run into trouble. Plenty of creationists and ID
advocates think they know their Darwin. You'd have to ask a battery
of questions about Darwin and evolution before you could get any idea
of the accuracy of the responses of "Yes, I am familiar".

For those who tested positive for knowing Darwin and evolution, can
anyone doubt that the percentage of those who accept evolution would
be significantly higher?

I also wonder how much religion might have played a factor, and
from there, demographics. Just the fact that someone would
comission such a poll suggests to me that the was a built in bias
and that the originator had an interest in seeing some interesting
results.

The biases of whoever commisioned the survey for what reasons don't
matter. What matters is the survey design and in particular, whether
the questions are framed in neutral terms or are "push poll" questions
designed to steer responses in one direction. A reputable pollster
will try to keep the questions neutral (they are the experts there)
and prevent the client from putting his thumb on the scale. Even if
the client is trying to keep his questions neutral, a good polling
outfit will point out any problems and suggest better ways to frame
the questions. Been there, done that.

Always skeptical of polls and statistics.

As we all should be - but only for the right reasons. That's why you
have to read everything that is critical to a poll: Who commissioned
it, how the sampling population was defined and respondents were
selected, how they were contacted, the instructions given to the
actual pollers, all the actual survey questions and branching rules
thereof, how "unable to reach" and "refused to answer" cases were
handled, how and why respondents and their responses may have been
stratified, plus the usual statistical information like sample size,
the claimed margin of error PLUS the confidence level for that level
of margin of error (you hardly ever see that last one).

IMO you're reading too much into the motives for the poll. In fact,
sometimes polls like this are commissioned by churches and others who
you might think have a bias in favor of favorable religious views, but
they truly and only want accurate results. However, lacking the
analysis that I just described (and am not going to do), I can't
dispositively refute your concerns.



.

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