While I agree with your point about the relevance of such polls, I
find it very interesting to look at areas in which the pollees in both
countries nearly agree. According to these polls, people in both
countries oppose raising taxes to help combat climate change, agree as
to the effects of immigration, and most surprising to me, agree on the
death penalty (in spite of most of the U.S. having the death penalty
and Britain not having one).

I would have expected the answers on all three of those to be different, given some of the other answers on the polls.

Posted March 28, 2008 4:48 PM by pat greene

That sort of poll is, by and large; as you say, more indicative of the pollster.

I did see the wrongness of the evolution question, and decided, based on those three, to forego the rest of it.

Posted March 28, 2008 5:10 PM by Terry Karney

This sort of thing really bugs me. I was a Poli Sci major in
college, and did my senior thesis involved finding problems with
polling data. I once argued with a telephone pollster for 20 minutes
because there wasn't a "No opinion" option. Because of that incident
(and the time I convinced a window-treatment salesman that we lived in
a subterranean bunker) my wife has forbidden me from answering the
phone unless I recognize the caller ID.

Posted March 28, 2008 5:15 PM by Matthew

That's the times we're living in now: "CE," or "Common Error."

We had a call from Owens-Corning about coming over and inspecting
our basement, based on a form we filled out at a home show last year.
"Well, here's our situation," I said. "We put our house up for sale,
and we're moving to New York." That took care of that. (Okay, it's
tangentially related to the window-treatment anecdote.)

Posted March 28, 2008 5:26 PM by Kip W

Yeah, as you note, the first question sucks. I'm more forgiving of
#2 and #3. You can't ask people an infinite number of questions, and
you want results that are easy to categorize and summarize so it isn't
practical to let them make up their own answers. If you want more
complex answers you need a focus group or in-depth one-on-one
interviews.

Posted March 28, 2008 5:39 PM by Matt Stevens

I'll settle for an option no one will ever include: "Not Nuanced
Enough." It's like "None of the Above," only with a comment about the
poll design. But you want one-sided, poorly designed polling, just try
taking any phone poll foisted upon his unsuspecting electorate by our
local Republican Congressidiot.

Posted March 28, 2008 5:49 PM by joann

The depressing thing is that by the standards of most newspapers the Economist is generally pretty good.

Posted March 28, 2008 6:06 PM by Francis D

joann: That wasn't poorly designed, it was designed with evil intent.

There is a difference.

Posted March 28, 2008 6:08 PM by Terry Karney

I'm just loving the commentary here about the media flattening
complex problems into binary choices, and the URL: 010101.html. :)

Posted March 28, 2008 6:13 PM by Andrhia

OI, Andrhia! Good catch!

Posted March 28, 2008 6:39 PM by clew

You shouldn't, in a poll, be asking questions that require a couple
of minutes of reading stuff to the victim on the other end of the
phone, either. Got one of those the other day: they were reading the
text of a ballot measure (or at least the stuff that would be appearing
on the ballot, assuming it gets that far), and after six or eight
clauses, I hung up on them.

Posted March 28, 2008 6:39 PM by P J Evans

I find the question about taxation of petrol gets the same
results(or very close) in America and Britain, despite the fact that
taxation on Britsh petrol is currently at 65% (if one includes VAT)
versus America's average is only 28%. Presumably both nations think
their petrol taxation levels are high enough, though they are at pretty
incomparable levels.

Posted March 28, 2008 6:45 PM by Ellietrudy

So if we take the CS Lewis "Perelandra" model that posits planets as
living beings (Oyarsa), and if we assume that Maleldil is a figment of
the Oyarsan imagination, then evolution can clearly be used to explain
the origin of Thulcandra (as well as the origin of Iron Maiden).

Posted March 28, 2008 6:47 PM by Michael

Something like this was the subject of one of Wiley Miller’s Non Sequitur Sunday strips about three weeks ago (9-Mar-2008).

Posted March 28, 2008 7:14 PM by Epacris

Free trade is generally a good thing, and often harmful. And we
don't have nearly as much of it as claimed (talk to Scott Dennis
sometime about how he preferred to pay the pre-NAFTA tariff bringing
t-shirts to Canada rather than to do the post-NAFTA paperwork).

Posted March 28, 2008 7:27 PM by Seth

Just what we need, a higher quality of stupid.

** goes grumpily back to tax hell**

Posted March 28, 2008 7:34 PM by Lizzy L

The situation described in #11 sounds like a near relative of the
hypothetical questioner (described at second hand in a recent Mark
Evanier post) who isn't so much asking a question as making a pathetic bid for attention. Now that I've read that, it'll be at least a couple of months before I do that again.

Posted March 28, 2008 8:49 PM by Kip W

"(And it looks like they forgot to color in the Britain dot in the Climate Change section.)"

It's not that they forgot, it's that the icy blue fill color just melted away.

Posted March 28, 2008 11:09 PM by Stephen Granade

#17

Oh, they were wanting attention, but it was of a semi-political
persuasion: the local junior colleges. Part of the problem is that
they're dealing with the output of our alleged (local) public school
system, which has some major problems.

Posted March 28, 2008 11:37 PM by P J Evans

Lizzy L @ 16... a higher quality of stupid

So many t-shirt ideas...

Posted March 28, 2008 11:45 PM by Serge

I'd like to see more detailed questions about the size of
government: Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to provide health
care for all Americans? Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to
keep the Iraq war going? Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to
fight a war with Iran? (My answers: yes, no, hell no.)

Asking about the size of government isn't very interesting without knowing what the big/small government is going to do.

Posted March 29, 2008 12:18 AM by Matt Austern

Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to provide health care for all Americans?

As a Brit, I think I'd probably say no to that; if you guys need
help with that then maybe we could cut down on our foreign wars and put
the money saved into the international development budget for you.

(As a Brit, I already pay higher taxes to provide health care for
all UK citizens. How to phrase that question illustrates one of the
difficulties in asking political questions in general and big/small
government questions in different countries.)

Posted March 29, 2008 8:56 AM by Neil Willcox

Well, yes, I admit that isn't a very good question to ask if you're
trying to compare opinion in different countries. But I'm pretty
unambitious; I'd settle for a saner assessment of public opinion in
just my country.

Posted March 29, 2008 11:32 AM by Matthew Austern

Wait--the Economist? Biased towards unfettered free trade and the
elimination of taxes (at least on the wealthy and corporations)?
SRSLY?!?!

There's a reason I cancelled my (free) subscription that sorry rag.
Well, multiple reasons, but they amount to the same thing: masturbatory
glee at the idea that we might bring back the Gilded Age.

Posted March 29, 2008 9:16 PM by mythago

Matt, #21, would I pay higher taxes to provide health care to
all Americans? Yes, if the health care is equal to what I get now. I
spend about a third of my disability income for medical crap and I
expect the taxes would be less. I'm not the average, though (I had
negative tax this year for both Fed & VA).

Posted March 29, 2008 10:43 PM by Marilee

Matt at 21, maybe. I suppose I'd be willing to pay more in taxes,
but not any more than the $6200 a year I currently pay for my medical
insurance, with more for co-pays, eyeglasses (which the insurance
doesn't cover) and dentistry (which the insurance doesn't cover). And
no, I would not pay any more for the Iraq war. I (we) have already
overpaid for that piece of sh-t.

Posted March 29, 2008 11:20 PM by Lizzy L

I was a Poli Sci major in college, and did my senior thesis
involved finding problems with polling data. I once argued with a
telephone pollster for 20 minutes because there wasn't a "No opinion"
option. Because of that incident (and the time I convinced a
window-treatment salesman that we lived in a subterranean bunker) my
wife has forbidden me from answering the phone unless I recognize the
caller ID.

I once told a telemarketer who asked to speak to "the homeowner" that I was a burglar.

Posted March 30, 2008 9:08 AM by Alex

I was a Poli Sci major in college, and did my senior thesis involved finding problems with polling data.

When I was in college, there were plenty of students running
projects intended to test their ability to gather opinion-poll data,
and I participated in some of them (not neglecting to complain about
badly-phrased questions). The one I still remember ended with the
pollster informing me that I had "a bad attitude to debt", based on my
being generally unwilling to get into it.[*]

Based on that, I figured people who run surveys have generally got
the bad questions out of their system in college. This lasted until the
bookstore survey which asked a question of the form "Do you prefer to
do this or do you prefer to do that?", followed by options for only
"yes" and "no".

I'm glad I don't get phone-polled. I would argue with the pollsters every time.

[*] OK, she may have meant "negative attitude", but she showed no sign of recognising that there was a difference.

Posted March 30, 2008 3:27 PM by candle

Matthew, #3 & Alex, #27, before I got my
cellphone, I frequently got calls for "Mr. Layman." I'd tell them I had
him tied up in the attic or "we don't talk about him!" or I was just
leaving to visit him at the sanitarium, etc.

Posted March 30, 2008 7:56 PM by Marilee

Marilee @29, If I got those phone calls, I'd have to flip a coin.
Heads, I tell them he got ordained and is now "Mr. Clergyman" and is
living at the rectory. Tails, I'd pretend I couldn't understand, and
ask them to repeat the question in a simpler terms.

If they laughed at either of those terrible puns, I'd pretty much have to answer their questions out of gratitude.

Posted March 31, 2008 10:27 AM by Matthew

I hate to say anything bad about a magazine that gave Noreascon 3 such a great write-up, but, Jesus.

Posted March 31, 2008 12:48 PM by Richard Brandt

Matthew, #3: I once argued with a telephone pollster for 20
minutes because there wasn't a "No opinion" option. Because of that
incident (and the time I convinced a window-treatment salesman that we
lived in a subterranean bunker) my wife has forbidden me from answering
the phone unless I recognize the caller ID.

Huh? That's not a bug, it's a feature! I'd have been standing in the
background desperately trying to stifle my hysterical laughter while
cheering you on!

Posted March 31, 2008 6:58 PM by Lee

#17 Kip W :

...who isn't so much asking a question as...

Oooh! That sounds like a job for John Scalzi!

(Speaking of free association of phrases and all)

#13 Michael :

So if we take the CS Lewis "Perelandra" model that posits
planets as living beings (Oyarsa), and if we assume that Maleldil is a
figment of the Oyarsan imagination, then evolution can clearly be used
to explain the origin of Thulcandra (as well as the origin of Iron
Maiden).

I heart you very much.

Posted April 3, 2008 5:18 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

I *hate* poorly worded polls... For two years I was the one calling
you and asking questions about what feminine hygiene products you
prefer. Later, I designed internal quality-control surveys for two of
my employers. A good poll asks concise, reasonable and relevant
questions without a hint of who the sponsor might be, or what flavor of
answer they're looking for.

I quit the market-research business when bad times forced us to ask
questions that were really just ill-covered marketing schemes (since
you could easily discern who the sponsor of the survey was by the tone
and wording)...

I learned one thing: They ALWAYS know more about you than they let
on. A check printing company gave us 18,000 blank checks (MOST of them
canceled) to use as our calling base, but we had to say it was a random
call. A financial services company gave us printed summaries of ALL of
their customer's investment portfolios, but again we had to say it was
a random call and that we didn't have any idea who we were talking
to...

The best was Pizza Hut, who forwarded us the phone numbers from all
their delivery customers in Atlanta for a week. We really didn't know
their names that time, but freaked out many people by starting the
conversation by asking how their pizza from the night before was...

Posted April 5, 2008 1:39 AM by Edward Oleander