Bogus poll headlines return
It’s been a long time since we last had a headline based on a bogus poll, but this week the Herald gives us a link on the Life & Style page
Poll: Cafe made right call
A poll shows almost 90 per cent of people think the café did the right thing, asking the mother to remove her crying baby…
and the headline for the story “Crying baby debate: Cafe made right call.”
The first question for “almost 90 per cent of people” is “which people?”, and second “how were they sampled?”
The poll (which comes with a bogosity disclaimer) is in the Bay of Plenty Times
In the Herald, the story is accompanied by another bogus poll, one that gives a quite different impression (and which doesn’t come with a disclaimer)
The difference will partly be the different audiences, partly the different phrasing of the question, and partly a reflection of the fact that bogus polls are completely useless as data-gathering methods.
The lack of agreement is still pretty dramatic.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »