Comments on: Common Mistakes in Polling and Poll Results

By: What Was in the 1941 College Woman’s Closet? » Sociological Images

What Was in the 1941 College Woman’s Closet? » Sociological Images — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:32:04 +0000

[...] find it rather charming that a popular magazine would even bother to clarify anything about their polling methods. So…earnest! Leave a Comment Tags: clothes/fashion, consumption, gender, gender: [...]

By: Rachel Kelly

Rachel Kelly — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:34:40 +0000

Jamie, I love you :)

Signed,
-Someone that is a history geek.

By: Leslie

Leslie — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:21:29 +0000

Yeah, I stopped reading the Science section of the New York Times for that reason. I like the NYT in general but their reporting of scientific studies sucks.

A little while ago they had this big headline like “Study Shows Anti-Depressants Don’t Work!!!!” (without the exclamation points, but they were implied). Then a week or so later they published another article that was entitled something like “Read This Before You Quit Antidepressants,” which explained the study in more detail and put it into the context of many other studies which have shown that antidepressants do work. Both articles made it into the “Top Ten Most Emailed” list on the paper’s website. Very clever, NYT, but I see what you’re doing there – two sensations are better for site traffic than one!

By: Bagelsan

Bagelsan — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:53:36 +0000

I also hate when the article just flat-out lies: “Bitches are CRAZY!” the title will trumpet! Then the rest of the article will be like “relationships! Ladies! Amirite? They want commitment!” and then buried somewhere 2/3 down the page there will be an actual research/researcher quote to the effect of “men and women pretty much responded the same, also it was just college kids surveyed, also we didn’t adjust for socialization.”

It makes me die a little inside.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:46:40 +0000

Haha, yeah, because people using television statistics to write news stories *totally don’t understand statistics.* I agree with most posters here that calling it “mistakes” bit naive, and a bit dangerous.
~~~

Doubly maddening is the fact that people didn’t believe Earth was flat in the time of Galileo, because this was resolved in classical Grecian times. The debate being referenced was actually between geo- and heliocentric theories, but whatevs.

Signed,
-someone who took a basic history course.

By: Kat

Kat — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:13:47 +0000

What I find really really maddening is the reporting of studies produced by universities/research teams etc, which do not include basic facts such as the number of people who took part in the study, how they were recruited, what exactly they were asked, who financed the study and the background of the researchers and the research institute. There have been so many BS studies, whose BS findings were then trumpeted in very sensationalist fashion by news outlets.

By: Austin C

Austin C — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:25:52 +0000

I knew Larry King was old, but sheesh.

By: Jared

Jared — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:40:55 +0000

As mercurianferret pointed out it’s dangerous to laugh and assume that these are unintentional mistakes. When a station like FOX presents “Climate Change” as an issue to be decided by an opinion poll of their Southern US viewers, it’s not a cute little mistake. It’s extremely malicious.

By: adamson

adamson — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:37:28 +0000

This is a great comic.

Some *certain* news station needs to learn about #2.

By: mercurianferret

mercurianferret — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:26:38 +0000

It’s hilarious because all these things are basic points that anyone should know at the end of their first basic statistics course. Further, I don’t understand why such literacy isn’t a mandatory part of general societal education. (You should minimally be able to determine if someone is yanking your chain about the meaning of the presented statistics.)

Of course, if “everyone” were able to tell the above 1-3 as chain-yanking, then obfuscation will just [have to] become more canny.

By: Genevieve

Genevieve — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:15:35 +0000

I’m not sure “mistakes” is the right title for this. When I’ve seen news media doing 1-3, my first thought is usually not that they need to hire a new statistician. Most of the statistical “mistakes” I spot on the news seem to be done intentionally, assuming (or just hoping) that the average viewer won’t be “someone who took a basic statistics course”, so that they can spin a more sensational story.