Tim Kozusko
July 20th 03, 03:57 PM
FWIW, I'd also point out that someone saying he or she believes an opinion
poll is tantamount to saying "I don't understand statistics".
All that a 70% approval rating means is that some pollster was able to
phrase a question in such a way as to get 70% agreement from a sample of a
thousand or so people who were willing to answer their phones around dinner
time. I'd hardly call that representative.
And even if the pollsters don't bother to give a confidence level, at least
they state the margin of error (as meaningless as it is without a c.l.) and
that imparts some measure of legitimacy to the average moron watching the
average talking head on Fox, or Sky.
poll is tantamount to saying "I don't understand statistics".
All that a 70% approval rating means is that some pollster was able to
phrase a question in such a way as to get 70% agreement from a sample of a
thousand or so people who were willing to answer their phones around dinner
time. I'd hardly call that representative.
And even if the pollsters don't bother to give a confidence level, at least
they state the margin of error (as meaningless as it is without a c.l.) and
that imparts some measure of legitimacy to the average moron watching the
average talking head on Fox, or Sky.