A Tale of Two Polls

Posted on October 23, 2008 by mikethemadbiologist

Consider the following:


23% approve of George Bush as president.
28% do not know that the earth travels around the sun.
Discuss.

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7 Responses to A Tale of Two Polls

  1. mikemawords – 50ish computer geek, scouter, biker, opinionated, liberal
    Mike says:
    October 23, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    I think a Venn diagram of the voting populations would be useful. I suspect a large overlap.
    In fact I would guess A intersect B = A

  2. insufficientlycomplicated
    Scott Conger says:
    October 23, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    People “lie” about supporting the current president out of feelings of patriotism and party loyalty. There were a bunch of surveys about this when they were trying to find out why people still said they supported Nixon after his impeachment. You have to assume that Bush’s approval rating is actually much lower.
    I’m fairly sure people don’t feel patriotic about the sun, but they may lie on that poll for shits and giggles.

  3. Richard Simons says:
    October 23, 2008 at 6:41 pm

    People “lie” about supporting the current president out of feelings of patriotism and party loyalty.

    One of the few good things about a monarchy – criticism of the government is not tangled up with patriotism.

  4. Edward says:
    October 23, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    Somethings to consider:
    How old were the respondents to the poll? I think it is likely that people who are retired are more likely to respond to a 70-question poll. Older people are more likely to have hearing problems. Also, ~50% of all of us will suffer from some form of dementia in our old age. I’d like to see the results broken down by age.
    Also, even with the younger population, people who are unemployed are more likely to be home and respond to these telephone surveys. More educated people are more likely to be employed.
    Did the science survey correct for educational level?
    I’ve met a heck of a lot more people who like Bush than who don’t know the earth revolves around the sun, but then I do research at a University.

  5. Matt Springer – Texas A&M University
    Matt Springer says:
    October 23, 2008 at 8:30 pm

    FWIW, Congress’ poll numbers are about half of either of those.

  6. eddie says:
    October 23, 2008 at 11:05 pm

    Seems to be saying that there are 5% ill-informed enough to not know about the sun and earth, yet they’re still smart enough to see dubya as a bad thing.
    That is the difference; between cognition and information.

  7. Anonymoustache says:
    October 24, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    I agree with Mike (there is probably a large overlap) and came here to say what Eddie said—some people who don’t know that the earth revolves around the sun are still smart enough to know that W is a disaster.

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