[lbo-talk] Pew on the net & politics

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri Nov 10 07:40:37 PST 2006


Gar:

So when it is Pew vs. everybody else, who do you believe?

[WS:] Probably neither. Opinion polls may be doing a decent job predicting election outcome, because they ask respondents to select from a few well defined alternatives. But when it comes to opinions on complex issues the variability introduced by the order of questions, wording, or the context in which the survey is taken is such that it makes any results highly unreliable.

Takes the simple issue of "causing" the climate change. If the question is straightforwardly asked "Is human activity causing climate change?" - most reasonable people would probably answer "no" or "not sure" because there are many factors contributing to climate changes and a belief that humans also can change the climate is preposterous. But then if you ask whether human activity contributes to climate change - the answer is probably yes, but that answer is meaningless without ascertaining the degree of that contribution. And here, things can get really muddy.

I recall answer an online Harris poll some time ago, when they asked a bunch of environment related questions, formulated in such a way that I had a real problem answering them. Perhaps I was reading into these questions too much, or perhaps they required a really specialized knowledge of the issue - but in the end most of my answers were "maybe" unsure" "do not know." I am pretty sure that most people answering this survey either felt and answered the same way, or they were "shooting from the hip" and provided answers that they believed were politically correct.

My overall "unscientific" impression from talking to people is that they honestly do not know what to think on this subject. Not only it takes considerable knowledge of science to understand climatic changes, which most people do not have, but there is considerable confusion created by conflicting messages created by various knowledge systems: science, media, politics, corporate propaganda, ideology, religion, and common stock knowledge. But in the end, people will believe what the dominant knowledge system will be telling them - and that means the presidential pulpit and the media in the US.

Wojtek



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