Dissecting polls

Mrs. du Toit has an absolutely outstanding post up about the ludicrous claims being made based on one question, yes-or-no polls. An excerpt:

Do you think Social Security should be eliminated?

Yes

No

If you answered that all taxes should be eliminated, think the cost of Social Security is too high, but don’t think that Social Security should be eliminated, what have I learned?

Yeah, BESIDES your being psychotic.

I’ve learned that you don’t think of Social Security as a tax, but I’d have to ask a lot more questions before I would be certain of that. I have to ask the tax question a few different ways, I have to ask the Social Security questions a few more ways, and on and on until I can figure out how you really feel about Social Security. Then I’d have to figure out how strongly you felt about Social Security in relationship to other issues, say Medicare, Welfare, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, etc. If you continually choose something other than Social Security as the issues you feel are important, then I know that while you may have opinions on Social Security, the issue doesn’t move you.

I’ve harped on the fact that reporters, being the lazy and sometimes ideologically-driven creatures they are, often present such polls without looking at the substance and methodology behind them. Connie du Toit lays out in clear and lucid detail why those public opinion McNuggets presented with such fanfare by the media mean exactly nothing.

Read the whole thing.