are polls effective?

[mojo]

well?

[ribitch]

only for watching checks dancing

[tweeteresa]

it depends a lot on how the poll was conducted, the pop. that participated compared to the whole pop., how the results were verified, how honest ppl were, how bias the questions were presented, etc......

[whitak24]

it depends on what kind of polls you are talking about. do you mean polls here at g|a?, or large public opinion polls.

if you mean public opinion polls, then i would say that polls are very effective at doing what they are supposed to do, and that is to give a snapshot of how a group of people feels about the issues at hand.

the problem arises when people interpret or misinterpret the poll. a poll does NOTHING more than what i just said above. however, people always try to use polls to say something else -- something larger. they try to say that it indicates how the country as a whole feels about an issue, or how people are going to vote in an election. they claim that the poll tells us how we should formulate public policy.

a good poll can give us SUGGESTIONS about many of these things. the better a poll is designed and conducted, the more it can be used to tell a larger story. but the fact remains that this "larger story" is still something MADE UP based on what the poll suggested.

[nickel]

i think polls can be very effective
very, very, very


you know what i just realized?
this is a poll poll

[Napoleon54]

Originally posted by nickelback

this is a poll poll

1/2)Possible poll poll results
a/b. and their consequences in relation to reality:

1)The poll poll shows that polls are effective
a. this really is true, polls are effective and the poll poll's results can be trusted.
b. this is false, polls aren't effective. The poll poll can not be trusted, yet IT claims that IT CAN be trusted. The poll poll disagrees with itself.

2)The poll poll shows that polls are NOT effective
a. this really is false, polls truely ARE effective.
b. this is true, polls aren't effective. In this case, the poll's own results can not be trusted. Thus we must assume that the poll might very well be effective, which suggests that we can trust the poll, which in itself contradicts its own outcome.

ESSENTIALLY, in the cases of both (b) consequences, THE POLL POLL MIGHT DISAGREE WITH ITSELF. The logic used in mathematical proofs suggests that anytime a disagreement occurs, that possibility is discounted; so we get rid of both (b) situations.

So we're left with the (a) situations which, in very different ways, show that polls are effective. Q.E.D.



Do I think too much?

[Punker_bob2004]

intelectual being??? at least hes got one unlike some people i know