Oct. 27, 2002 - 20:20 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Square One

Pre election time and months preceding once again show me that our polling system is as flawed as the moguls who pay for it. Some friends have tried to straighten my thinking out about polling. And in a perfect world run by perfect people populated with perfect citizens but yet who have different opinions I can see that an accurate poll could be run.

My Dad once said that he could prove anything, any way he wanted to just by the way he would draw up the charts and graphs. He showed me some of the tricks wherein the same figures could be charted differently or using other definitions and methods use the same figures to show results opposite than shown in the first place. It has been a long time ago and I can't remember the specifics but I do remember that he showed me and that I do read with jaundiced eye the charts and graphs I see in the news papers and magazines nowadays.

I received instructions about polling when I carped about the polls being pushed forth at plus or minus 4 per cent more or less accuracy. I was referred to some learned literature on polls that more or less proved a point, but according to me the old bit of, if we were in a perfect world with perfect citizens and honest pollsters those experts might have a point.

Comes to mind a lawyer trying to discredit a witness on the stand saying, "Answer me yes or no, do you still beat your wife ?" With some study I think I could come up with questions to be asked of a group of people in a way to provide a certain opinion. And of the same group I think I could ask different questions along the same lines to produce opinions 180 out from the first batch.

I still feel that polls are an interesting method to test the waters. But I believe that there is no way to pick out people, by any method that when polled will always speak with one voice. So when an article says in the paper, "Seventy five percent of the people believe that men should all wear purple hats to work," I begin to wonder, what questions were asked, in what way, from which people ? ? ? ? ? How the poll was financed.

My thoughts on polling seem to me to be accurate. In election years each side will quote polls that show their fair haired boy is a 3 to 1 favorite of John Q. Public. Accuracy ? Plus or minus 4 per cent hee, hee, hee.

Sure there are established criteria put forth by experts on how polls should be conducted, the choice of questions, the choice of people to be polled. And maybe they are right most of the time IF polls are conducted by their methods. But I do have a question or two, "What would be the result of a poll conducted among dot com people before this recession as opposed to the exact same poll given to the same people who are now hunting jobs ?"

I think I know just exactly how I feel about things I encounter in life and read about. I don't think I am wishy washy about things but I also know that there are times that I have changed my mind and began to believe the opposite way due to thinking further, seeing evidence to prove my first thoughts wrong or seeing the fallacy that led me into that belief. If polled on Monday I gave a certain answer, maybe my answer would be drastically different on Friday.

I guess in a way we the poople are at fault too. Most of us consider that we are intelligent enough to give a realistic answer to poll questions. I am not so sure that we are that smart -- yet we participate in polls as loose cannon (a favorite phrase of mine). Having read many pirate stories and naval stories as a kid, reading about the cannon which were on wheels, lashed to an open port with ropes suddenly breaking their ties and rolling hither and yon as the ship sways to and fro due to the action of the waves wreaking and wreaking havoc on whatever they hit. Sound familiar ? Applied to loose cannon humans who are in charge in too many places and I think when loose cannon citizens answer poll questions I doubt if the end result could be anywhere near to being right. And our biggies swing the way the polls go.

At election times I note the headlines on poll articles and see that once again seventy five percent - more or less - of our folks are for candidate A and seventy five percent of the exact same people are for candidate B who is running for the same position. I have the thought that we are once again back to Square One . . . . . . . . .

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