SERVEFollow

Look at you, getting all emotional again and calling me trash. Tsk tsk, Alma.



Poor Alma. You're so emotional, it's hard to hold a conversation with you. Take some more time and calm down.

Really? I guessed I must have imagined below then?

Belkira wrote:

Almalieque wrote:

Here's the thing about polls and statistics...

In other words, you know I'm right, but you've got an emotional argument to pretend that the numbers don't really say what you want them to say. A page right out of gbaji's book.

Talking to you is pointless. You ignore blatant evidence and make **** up. That, coupled with assumptions on what people really meant when answering a poll, is all you'll use to make up your mind. Heaven forbid you be shown actual numbers, because they don't matter.

Since you failed so hard, let me help you out. My PREMISE against Belkira's poll was that polls and statistics can be made to show whatever you want them to show. It wasn't the fact that it was based on 1000 people, that was just a bonus.

Since you brought it there, answer me this, if multiple 1000 person polls continually have different results, how can you say that 1000 people is a large enough sample? If the survey was accurate of the U.S. opinion (which is only one answer at any given time), then your survey should be consistent, else what's the point of your survey?

My point was that polls can be created and distributed in a way to gain certain results, but you can not ignore what people are openly supporting.



WTF? I'm just going off the information that I see from politicians especially during primaries and debates. The question of supporting same sex marriage is asked straight forward for candidates to raise their hand in agreement. Since you're so big on polls, I've never seen polls to show contrary that most republicans support traditional marriage and that the largest base of SSM supporters are Democrats. I'm not a politician and I know that. I'm not sure what world you live in.

This has nothing to do with Semantics, but the truth. What political party do the independents who favor SSM tend to affiliate themselves with?


Just like abortion, many Democrats have stated that they are against the action, but support the right to kill innocent babies. The same argument could be made about abortion off the same logic. Many people vote Pro-choice just because they feel it its "taking away rights" if that notion is repealed and the vote actually has little to nothing to do with the actual action of abortion.

That type of position is typically not represented in the polls. You get questions like "Do you support abortion" "Are you pro-life/choice". The only way to get the real answer is to look at what people are expressing, look at the actual number of abortions, etc., not some poll asked to 1000 people.

Alma is truly mentally disabled. This is not hyperbole. There is something wrong with him on a basic level.

I realize most of you know this, but in case we have a newcomer reading these threads, I don't want them to think he's just trolling.

Funny how I only hear that on these forums and no other forums or in RL when discussing the same exact debates using the same exact arguments.... interesting.....

I'd bet good money that you spend a lot of time talking to the backs of peoples heads.

A fair poll will accurately represent the opinion of the population at large, and a biased one will slant results in a certain way (using leading questions or confusing answers, for example). That doesn't really have anything to do with the number of people being sampled though which is what you were going on and on about, and what you happened to be wrong on. 1000 is still a sufficient number.

"I'm just going off the information that I see from politicians..." Well there's your first problem. There's a method of finding these things out without just taking some politician's words in a primary, and it's also much more reliable. Even then, the exact methodology is also made available, so the validity of the results can be fairly debated.

I like how at the end you "get the real answer" by looking at what a bunch of different people are saying, as if that's not just a very unscientific and less reliable version of a poll.



Edited, Apr 18th 2011 9:33pm by bsphil

There you go, Bel-Bel... that's how you lift up your self-esteem out of depression. Don't worry, we accept you as who you are, emotional and illogical.



My point is, how do you know when a poll is "fair and accurately represented" vs being a "biased one"? Do you think biased polls are going to always say "we polled people who we thought would answer a certain way?" That's only assuming it was intentional. Many times, the bias is unintentional.

You can't claim that the number of people is irrelevant then turn around and say that 1,000 people is sufficient, but not 10. That's a contradiction. Either the sample size makes a difference or it doesn't. It doesn't matter how fair you make a poll, if it doesn't cover a certain amount of people (especially if it is random), then it isn't going to be very accurate. The simple fact that you have two polls that contradict each other is evident of that.

If the people were carefully chosen meeting certain criteria of specific demographics, i.e. voting citizens, then the number of people means less as opposed to the poll being random. In a random poll, the same person can be polled multiple times or have an un-proportional amount of demographics can be polled. The only way you can counter that is with numbers.

No matter what you say or try to argue, 1000 people in a poll is not a sufficient amount of people to represent what the U.S. thinks in large if polls in the same month on the same topic contradict each other. You just can't assume that the other poll was done incorrectly. Your only counter is that it is impossible to find 501 people out of 1000 for "x" in one poll and 501 people out of 1000 against "x" in another poll, with a total pool of 300,000,000 people. Are you really going to argue that it's statistically impossible to have different results?



/sigh...

You somehow up until now, continuously miss my objective. My goal is to logically, not scientifically, figure out what the ACTUAL majority believes, not a small sample. The only "scientific" way to do that is to poll everyone or the majority of the population where it is statistically impossible for the minority to overcome. As you know, that is practically impossible and or not feasible to do, hence the "1,000 person polls".

Well, there is no reference to those people in those polls. Who are they? Where are they? For all you know, they could be people's pets and dead relatives, often used in voting.

With congressmen, mayors, Presidents, VP's, Governors, Senators, news anchors etc., you have an exact reference. You can look up that person and reference from speeches, votes, etc, what they believe in and support. From that, you can gather a more realistic guestimation of what the followers believe in. It's not a coincidence that people within particular parties tend to favor certain things.

Do you think all of these polls are 500 Republicans and 500 Democrats? If the poll is random, then they aren't. So, how again is that a fair representation of the U.S. population in regarding to a political question? If your poll consisted of more Republicans, your poll will more than likely result in "against SSM", where as if it were more Democrats, your poll will more than likely result in "favor SSM".

Even then, if your polls contradict each other, you can not just choose whichever one supports your claim as being representative of the U.S.

I think that independent, in the case of voters, means they do not affiliate themselves with either party.

I would consider myself an independent, in the last election I voted a split ticket. I have never voted a straight ticket.

Hey, thanks!

Well, you did ask what party independent affliliate themselves with. Maybe you meant what party ssm supporters affiliate themselves with?

Seriously this dense? You asked what party independents tend to affiliate with, yet independents are a group of people who by definition do not affiliate themselves with any party. It was a stupid goddamn question.

This is another example of not-so smart people taking the dumbest interpretation of something and projecting their stupidity unto me as if I'm the moron as opposed to logically looking at the question.

Let me break it down for you since you fail to grasp the concept.

Republicans tend to always support the Republican party regardless of the opposition.

Democrats tend to always support the Democratic party regardless of the opposition.

Independents tend to vote for either or. Unless they are complete "flip-flops" (as the political parties as a whole are fairly consistent in their beliefs), each independent voter will likely, but not guaranteed, vote one party over another.

I'm an independent, but I'm more likely to vote Democrat than I would Republican based on what each party typically stand for. It is impossible to have an opinion and not favor one party over the other.

You're absolutely correct... how can you be this dense? Are you arguing that Independents tend to vote Independent? Maybe you should mention that in the upcoming Presidential election so the candidates don't waste time trying to convince the independents and the "unsures", because they only support Independents and the Uncertains.



Did you read anything that I just wrote? I presented a poll that was taken just last month that said the opposite. Unless you believe majority of the U.S. changed their minds since March, 2011, you're just picking and choosing polls that support your argument. Hence the problem with polls, you can make them say whatever you want them to.