A Tale of Two Polls

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I think a Venn diagram of the voting populations would be useful. I suspect a large overlap.
In fact I would guess A intersect B = A

People "lie" about supporting the current president out of feelings of patriotism and party loyalty. There were a bunch of surveys about this when they were trying to find out why people still said they supported Nixon after his impeachment. You have to assume that Bush's approval rating is actually much lower.

I'm fairly sure people don't feel patriotic about the sun, but they may lie on that poll for shits and giggles.

By Scott Conger (not verified) on 23 Oct 2008 #permalink

People "lie" about supporting the current president out of feelings of patriotism and party loyalty.

One of the few good things about a monarchy - criticism of the government is not tangled up with patriotism.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 23 Oct 2008 #permalink

Somethings to consider:

How old were the respondents to the poll? I think it is likely that people who are retired are more likely to respond to a 70-question poll. Older people are more likely to have hearing problems. Also, ~50% of all of us will suffer from some form of dementia in our old age. I'd like to see the results broken down by age.

Also, even with the younger population, people who are unemployed are more likely to be home and respond to these telephone surveys. More educated people are more likely to be employed.

Did the science survey correct for educational level?

I've met a heck of a lot more people who like Bush than who don't know the earth revolves around the sun, but then I do research at a University.

Seems to be saying that there are 5% ill-informed enough to not know about the sun and earth, yet they're still smart enough to see dubya as a bad thing.

That is the difference; between cognition and information.

I agree with Mike (there is probably a large overlap) and came here to say what Eddie said---some people who don't know that the earth revolves around the sun are still smart enough to know that W is a disaster.