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Why do the words: "according to the results of a Harvard-Northeastern survey of 4,000 gun owners." as opposed to say "50,000 (carefully) randomly selected peo
by gerdesj 9y ago
Why do the words:
"according to the results of a Harvard-Northeastern survey of 4,000 gun owners."
as opposed to say "50,000 (carefully) randomly selected people in the US"
... make me judgmental about this article?
- QAPereo 9y agoBecause you are but mad North-North-West. When the wind is Southerly you know a hawk from a handsaw.
- Turing_Machine 9y agoChange to ""50,000 (carefully) randomly selected people in the US, for whom you have strong evidence that they won't lie about their gun ownership" and you're going to get nearer the truth. I guess that falls under "carefully", but it needs to be made explicit. Basically, any study or poll on a controversial topic should be considered of little value until positively proven otherwise. If one point of view (or whatever) has been widely demonized (e.g., gun owners, Trump voters), you're almost certain to get garbage results (e.g., "Hillary Clinton has a 90% probability of winning the election").