Comments on: Atheists, a distrusted minority http://battleangel.org/2006/03/23/atheists-a-distrusted-minority/ Tell us what you despise; by this are you truly known. Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:15:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Björn Hallberg http://battleangel.org/2006/03/23/atheists-a-distrusted-minority/#comment-436 Björn Hallberg Fri, 24 Mar 2006 07:17:41 +0000 #comment-436 I guess that in your reality, for results contrary to your rosy image of America to have any reliability, generalizability, and validity, they would have had to ask all 300M (even toddlers?), which is impossible hence America can never be shown to harbour any unhealthy attitudes?<br /><br />I refer you to Gallup's answer with regard to polls, the same basic idea should apply for other surveys:<br /><a href="http://media.gallup.com/PDF/FAQ/HowArePolls.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://media.gallup.com/PDF...</a><br />It is quite possible to argue that the method of selection is flawed (I don't have the full text article on hand), however, a random selection of as few as 1000 respondents is usually accepted. The important factor is how many of those that actually participate and how the selection is done. Also, since science works the way it does, no one is trying to "prove" anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, just corroborate a theory, hence the sort of overambitious survey you suggest would not make the results more reliable and would still depend on the wording of questions and so forth. These and many other interesting facts are open to those that don't have a "job." I guess that in your reality, for results contrary to your rosy image of America to have any reliability, generalizability, and validity, they would have had to ask all 300M (even toddlers?), which is impossible hence America can never be shown to harbour any unhealthy attitudes?

I refer you to Gallup’s answer with regard to polls, the same basic idea should apply for other surveys:
http://media.gallup.com/PDF...
It is quite possible to argue that the method of selection is flawed (I don’t have the full text article on hand), however, a random selection of as few as 1000 respondents is usually accepted. The important factor is how many of those that actually participate and how the selection is done. Also, since science works the way it does, no one is trying to "prove" anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, just corroborate a theory, hence the sort of overambitious survey you suggest would not make the results more reliable and would still depend on the wording of questions and so forth. These and many other interesting facts are open to those that don’t have a "job."

]]> By: JD http://battleangel.org/2006/03/23/atheists-a-distrusted-minority/#comment-435 JD Thu, 23 Mar 2006 22:15:35 +0000 #comment-435 2000 households were interviewed?! Hardly a good sampling out of a population of 300,000,000. Get a grip. While you're at it...get a job. 2000 households were interviewed?! Hardly a good sampling out of a population of 300,000,000. Get a grip. While you’re at it…get a job.

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