My lucky bastard of a brother has been living in Scotland since January, and thus has been able to escape this imbecility. Someone wake me when our country emerges from the Dark Ages.

Les- the danger of implosion is small, given that the evolution-shaped hole in these people’s heads is filled with porridge.

porridge gives them too much credit, the intellegence-sapping fumes of incense are filling that cranial cavity and making it bigger.

Latest Gallop Poll says nearly half of Americans are idiots.

Well, Les, do we really need a Gallup (note spelling) poll to tell us that?

15% said that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate that did not believe in evolution.

You call this a “bright spot”?  I know you’re groping here, trying to find some brightness in idiocy, but, really, what would we think if they said one of these things?:
“15% said that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate that did not believe in global warming.”
...or…
“15% said that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate that did not believe that Apollo 11 really landed on the moon.”
...or…
“15% said that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate that believes that if we were meant to fly, we’d have wings, and all air travel should be stopped.”
...or…
“15% said that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate that believes that the sun revolves around the Earth.”

I find the idea that 15% of us — that’s ONE in effing SIX-ish! — is willing to use that as a criterion for choosing elected officials is scary.

Wow.  Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

given that the evolution-shaped hole in these people’s heads is filled with porridge

Nah, it’s peanut butter

whitebloodoftheheavens: intellegence-sapping fumes of incense are filling that cranial cavity and making it bigger.

Hey! Don’t be knocking incense, now. I know it’s somewhat of an acquired taste, but our apartment is almost constantly redolent of burnt jasmine or patchouli. 

Besides, something tells me that a good many of those polled who supplied the disturbing answers aren’t exactly incense types.

Les: 15% said that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate that did not believe in evolution.

Barry: You call this a “bright spot”? 

Agreed. 15% is hardly a trivial matter. 

On the flip side, our 10% or so wouldn’t vote for a creationist/ID’er. 

Some people understand both anatomy and geology, while others fail miserably.

I am reminded of an old ssying “look at the inteligence of the average man, and remeber half the world is dumber than that”.

Barry, despite the appearance my website title suggests, I’m actually a rather optimistic person when it comes to my fellow humans and I like to try to believe the best about them. It’s one of those weird self-contradictory things about me as I then sit down and write about all the idiots that I come across which you’d think would show me that my optimism is misplaced, yet it remains.

In a way my rant is a plea to my fellow humans to try and be better than they are currently, or at least a bit more informed on topical issues. It’s just hard not to let my frustration bleed into my commentary.

Have you seen what is taking all the headlines and filling the (s)news channels lately? Paris Hilton? Springtime for Paris? WTF? But, then, maybe that’s a good thing. It may mean that there is nothing more important going on in the world, like large buildings being attacked, etc.

I am reminded of an old saying “look at the intelligence of the average man, and remember half the world is dumber than that”.

  Wow, there’s a depressing thought.

I don’t want to hear any more about some dumb whore going to jail. I tried to catch the news to see what was going on in D.C. and all I got was images of the moron in the back of a police car. I was hoping to hear about the bullshit immagation bill, but all I could find was stupid bitch updates. Sorry to vent, but I hate celeberty “news”.

I’d love to think that the average Aussie is smarter than the average USian - there’s security in delusions - I’d make a good Theist.

Sorry to vent, but I hate celeberty “news”.

I know whatcha mean.
If we hadn’t had major rain and floods, bitsa road disappearing and people dying, and a coupla days ago a B-Double and a train colliding killing eleven, Hilton woulda lead the news - how thankful can one be for small mercies?

Well I can say this, the “paris thing” proves the TERRORISTS haven’t won.

The majority of news now days has evolved (devolved?) into infotainment.  You’ll have to look long and hard for actual meaningful news even on such stations as CNN.  Forget about hearing about something that the government doesn’t really want you to know about, such as bills passed in the dead of night on a Friday night just before a Congressional recess (why DO they do that anyway?  Maybe because theres almost nobody in attendance during such times?)

I’d suggest listening to NPR, checking out alternate new sites like the Huffington Post and Working For Change.  Given the two sites mentioned DO have a liberal bias, but they tend to report stuff that the idiot box totally misses (unfortunately you’ll still hear some BS about The Most Worthless Person Alive, but it’s never their primary focus).  Personally I prefer news websites over watching TV or the radio because I can get to what I want to know, rather than having to listen to what they want to tell me.

As for the Gallup Poll, does anybody really think that’s accurate?  I know pollsters are supposed to poll in a more or less random pattern in order to get the best possible sample, but I have to wonder how often that really occurs. 

Also, I have to wonder about the cell phone issue.  How many people are actually sitting at home (with everyone supposedly more busy than ever) waiting by the phone (if they have a land-line phone) for pollsters?  The poll said that 1,007 adults over 18 were polled by phone.  Last time I knew, pollsters and telemarketers and such did not have access to the public record of cell phone listings (yet), so they can’t call those numbers.  Which means they are limited to land-line (and VOIP) phones.  I don’t know the numbers and I’m too lazy to look for them, but I have to wonder:

1. Who still has a land-line and a cellphone (I personally have only a cellphone).
2. What the spread of people are that would be at home during the time the poll calls were made, and what time they were made.
3. What states did they make the calls to?  If they called population centers in all 50, did they really only call 20 households in each? 

I don’t think polling works that way if I remember statistics class right.  If I remember, they most likely called a spread of places around one or two cities, and the assumption is they got an appropriate sample.

I know there is a rise in fundamentalism across the country, but I don’t think it’s evenly spread.  Places like South Carolina where Xians are specifically gathering would make for a much more skewed poll.

Polls are bullshit if only to say that it’s ridiculous to say “40% of whatever believes such and such”, when its only been confirmed that 40% of 1,007 people believe it.  1,007 is hardly an accurate or reasonable representation of 300 million unless we’re talking assembly line products or something that is reasonably expected to be the same across the board.

Polls make some really broad assumptions about the homogeneousness of society that just doesn’t exist.  Polls have a very tenuous grasp on reality.  I agree with Bush on that one thing, governing according to polls is dumb.

Poles should be no more than fun things to do while you skip out on doing rental reports. Hey don’t mock me, I realy do want to know what kind of plant I would be.
Besides, I want to know how many people told them to piss off.

I would definitely hang up on a pollster myself, but unfortunately they don’t seem to be too eager to release those numbers.

1. Who still has a land-line and a cellphone (I personally have only a cellphone).

Majority still have land/VOIP.  Can’t get a lot of pay tv without it - satellites, at least.  Don’t know about digital cable - never had it.  Alarm systems too req a land/VOIP line.  Most of the cell only folk are apartment dwellers, since it’s easier to just get a cable/ISP pack with one shot and forget about the landline. 

Personally, I would like to rig my alarm up to a cell on my family account, and have the GPS 911 capability on my cell so I can drop the landline.

Doesn’t a great deal of the worlds population believe in some form of god?  This is a stupid poll, and it saying that nearly half Americans are idiots is kind of funny, considering that the rest of the world has fanatical idiots, just like the ones that are here also.

They don’t ask just 1000 people. They ask loads. If you have every been in a (correctly run) poll you will know that they establish a few basic facts- age, gender, ethnicity etc.  The make up of the society in general is known eg. x% fit criteria a b and c, so the compute pick a “scale” sample that fit a b and c- so 49% of the 1007 will be male. In UK 8% would be non-white, etc etc.  What screws polls up isn’t the methodology, but the fact people sometimes lie.  Unpopular governments sometimes get a surprise re-election victory, as people vote for them, but are too ashamed to admit it.

Poll organistation have databases of ‘repeat customers’ - ie people whose stats are known, and are known to be willing to take part (so cutting down on the number of contacts that need to be made). 

Sometimes you may be approached in the street. Yo may find after they have confirmed a few basic facts they ask you no more questions. Othertimes they will not even approach you, but someone else, even though you thought you were the obvious candidate This is because street pollsters are often told to fill just a certain quota of a type to make sure that all sub-sets are covered. (John gets answers from men, Jane from women, or John is given something very specific- Men 25-34 who are Carribean, who live in postcodes ‘x’-’z’ ).

I am a member of ‘YouGov’. They poll exclusively via email alerts- if you get an email, you go to that poll on line. I usually get 50p a pop (sometimes more), and a cheque when the total is £50.  My wife gets more invites than me- I suspect she represents a demographic who are less likely to be members- I would imagine that more men under 40 than women over 45 use the net/sign up.

Polling selection is quite a science, developed over the last 100 years or so.  For instanceif you decide you are going to poll 1 in every 10 houses (which is what an official government mini census does), a number between 2 and 0 is randomly (true random) produced, and all houses ending in that number polled (4, 14, 24 etc). Why never houses ending in 1?  Because 1 is the 1st house in the street. They tend to be corner plots, often bigger and/or more valuable, so the occupants are likely to be richer. OK you will still pick up some corner houses, but this will be in rough proportion, where as you will bick up ALL number ones, skewing the stats.

Lots of research into stats has taken place, and it is commonly accepted in the stats community, that 1,000 data points will produce an acceptable representation, but no fewer.  They also tend to disregard the top and/or bottom 5% in numerical answer polls, as just a hand full of extreme results can seriously affect the average. This is common with things such as earnings- the super rich earn so much that the top 5% will seriously pull the average away from what it realistically is. (if 1 sample in 1000 is 100 times larger it alters the result up by approx 10%- imagine if you were told the average wage in your company was 21144, when the ‘real’ average for staff was 19000- all because the chairman gets 2,000,000 a year)

There was some pollster that kept calling our house, offering money to take a poll or attend a focus group or something but I never did return their call.  Maybe I should have gone along with it, it just sounded really, really boring.

Thanks LH; that was interesting.

I had ACNeilson boxes attached to my TVs for about 6 or 7 years. I got quite used to pressing the button on the ‘remote’ every 1/2 hour to acknowledge I was awake and still watching. The one I had in my bedroom was pressed every hour or so cos that’s the way I used to ‘sleep’.
I cashed in for a few nice presents when the house was sold.
I’ve also done a coupla paid for beer and poker machines surveys.

TAFKA, here in Oz most people still have both Landline as well as Mobile – most mobiles are still pretty expensive to run unless you’ve got special deals that become all too confusing when they want your Landline/ADSL too. I know my brother’s two boys have a deal where they use mobiles to speak to their mates for nothing if their mates have the same deal with the same company.
My mobile’s $1/minute but I have an hour for free each day in 20 minute blocks. At 11am Sundays I call/talk Dad for 20 minutes (he lives 1,100 kms away in Tassie); sometimes I hang up and dial again if we haven’t finished.
I’m lead to believe communication costs in Oz are dearer than US or Europe but what I don’t know hardly affects me – Landline/ADSL/Mobile costs me about $120/month.

I’d love a pollster to call me up but I only seem to get calls from Indians (from India LOL) trying to give me a new mobile if I sign up for new phone deals.

There was some pollster that kept calling our house, offering money to take a poll or attend a focus group or something but I never did return their call.  Maybe I should have gone along with it, it just sounded really, really boring.

I did one on cars a few years back, got paid $75 for a little over an hour’s worth of looking at stuff in a warehouse. 

I think many do try to stick to a “regular” set of people.  I’ve had some try to wiggle me into focus groups when I didn’t quite qualify.