On Aug 25, 2009, at 9:52 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> From a cognitive point of view, polls created thier own answers by
> imposing
> a particular interpretative framework on the comunicative
> interaction. It
> goes well beyond mere wording of questions, and involves social
> status and
> personalities of the interviewers and respondents, social context
> where the
> interview takes place, e.g. whether it is a telephone or face to face
> interview, who else is present in the room with the responded, what
> was the
> respondent doing prior to the interview, and so on. The idea that
> one can
> measure the contetns of the human mind with a paper and pencil test is
> probably one of the biggest science-defying fallacies in out times.
Pollsters know all this, you know. One of the reasons you know it, in fact, is that they've tested precisely these things.
Doug