Pointless polls

Some people in Australia are unhappy about the government paying to keep a useless mob of chaplains in the public schools — it's basically a sinecure to prop up the finances of way too many religious parasites. Anyway, there's a poll associated with the article. Is there a place for chaplains in state schools? Yes 42% No 57% It's a confusing question. Don't Australian schools have rubbish bins and toilets? Those are "places", after all.
Hey, this is a non-pointless poll — Scienceblogs very own Christie Wilcox is in a contest for a $10,000 scholarship…and she's falling behind. You can look at all of her competition, and there's not a single other blog about science in the bunch, and the leader so far is a blog about cosmetics? Woo hoo. Go vote.
The cunning way to make a poll unpharyngulable is to throw in an irrelevant extra option to draw off our attention, and the NY Daily News has done it well. They're basically asking the question, "Is evolution true?" and giving us the option of no, yes, and Glenn Beck is a freakin' moron, and look! Mobs of people rush in to give the irrelevant (but true) answer: Is evolution a dubious theory being "forced down our throats"? Yes, I'm sick of scientists telling me what to believe. 29% No, it is clearly how things came to be. 24% It's harder to believe Glenn Beck is so popular. 47% They should…
You'd think this one is a no-brainer; a Chilean newspaper is asking who was responsible for rescuing the trapped miners, miracles (milagro) or science (ciencia). El rescate de los mineros en Chile fue para usted más: Milagro 49.5% Ciencia 50.5% I didn't see any miracles on TV. I saw lots of engineering and mining technology, though.
The Berkeley County jail in South Carolina has a terrifying policy: Our inmates are only allowed to receive soft back bibles in the mail directly from the publisher. They are not allowed to have magazines, newspapers, or any other type of books. First thought: I'd die if I were arrested in Berkeley County. Second thought: it says something about the county that they've had this policy for years, and are only now moving on one complaint made in 2008. The comments section on the article is enlightening, too — apparently, prisoners ought to be digging ditches, not reading, and if we let them…
By now, everyone knows that the hateful gerontocracy of the Mormon Church was on proud display by Boyd Packer. Besides the message of ignorance he's passing on, this video also reveals something we became familiar with in our years of living in Utah: the leadership of the church is really a collection of feeble-minded, doddering old fools, who frighteningly have an audience that thinks they're wonderful, no matter what they say. A Salt Lake City television station is running a poll on whether the audience agrees with that benighted homophobia. The numbers aren't as bad as I expected, but…
I thought this had to be a political Poe…but then I find it's full of Alex Jones crap, and he takes himself seriously, vile and stupid as he is. So take a swipe at this poll, anyway. Are Blacks Equal to Whites? Yes 67% No 29% Unsure 4%
I hate to break the news to him, but he's just so Johnny Snow. I've grated against ol' Wayne a few times before to mock his awful polls, and now I think he has finally snapped, babbling out incoherent mush about how atheists are just like believers, only worse…and he really doesn't like me. I don't think. Hard to tell with mixed messages like this one. Just as James Dobson and other evangelists cultivate audiences in order to spread their beliefs, so do atheist evangelizers. The bigs are Britons Christopher Hitchens, who is battling cancer, and Richard Dawkins, who turns 70 in March. Myers,…
From the Guardian: Is physicist Stephen Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe? 81.3% Yes. I believe in gravity, not divinity 18.7% No. God: Hawking 'not necessary' Somebody show me the units of divinity, please, as well as a few measurements that show the goodness of fit to theory. Oh, and show the formula, too.
Here's a silly poll from Eric Hovind, and we know from experience how it will go: if he doesn't like the results, he'll jigger everything around until he gets what he wants. Make him dance anyway. How do we know God exists? Without Him we can't know anything 47% Um...He doesn't 35% Examined evidence 18% Hovind hasn't juggled the contents of the poll around (yet), but he has snuck in a redirect to take you away from it. When you follow the link, you'll end up on a page without the poll; to get to it, either go to the home page for the site, or just paste the address " drdino.com " directly…
It's a whole new world I'm not in the least bit interested in exploring: it turns out that healthcare information technology people have professional blogs about their field, which is cool and useful, but the jargon is impenetrable, the acronyms prolific, and the subjects tend to be far from my interest areas. But that's cool, the feelings are probably mutual, and everyone has got to follow their own path, so I have no objections at all — I'm just warning you that you generally won't find much to get you excited on these things. But still, I was sent a link to a weird blog entry, and as a…
Maybe I am a bit spacey lately, but I noticed those commenters who were trying to pharyngulate a poll without me. I'm feeling dis-authoritated now! Here's my belated contribution. Crush it, please. Do you think immunizations are safe? Yes 53% No 46%
Really, they just don't get it. The struggle for equality applies to everyone, not just a few dimensions of the range of human sexual behavior. It's like they're desperately parsing up the range to find something everyone will consistently object to, and it probably won't happen. Should transgender or transsexual people be allowed to legally marry? Yes 76.9%No 22.1%Not sure 1.0% Hey, how about the next question being, "Should gingers be allowed to marry people who can curl their tongues?"
This is a piddly little poll on a lame Christian web site, and it only has a few votes — it'll be a pushover. Give 'em a thrill and more votes than they've ever had before. Are you good enough to get to heaven? I don't believe in heaven or hell 71.8% No, but I put my trust in Jesus Christ who promises to take away my sins and give me His righteousness 15.4% Yes, I fully measure up to God's standard and have kept all His commandments 12.8% I'm good enough in my sight, so I think God will let me in 0% No, who is good enough? 0%
Once again, some hick town has a few redneck ignoramuses thinking civic law is defined by a few Old Testament commandments. It isn't. Should a Southern Illinois town put the Ten Commandments in its town square? Yes. It's good to remind people of God's laws governing our behavior. 72% No. It violates separation of church and state, and is offensive to non-Christians. 23% Who knows? 5% God's laws say I can't mow my lawn on Sunday, can't have a statue of Buddha in my house (we do, actually), and can't appreciate an attractive starlet on TV. Why should a town praise a bunch of bad laws they…
It's from one of those kook-fringe Christian groups in Australia. Let's show them that they are silly to open up their views to a referendum on the internet. Would you vote in a Prime Minister who does not acknowledge God? No 54%Yes 45% I predict that they'll pull a Hovind and change the poll or take it down within a few hours.
By popular demand (50 email requests in the last few hours), here's an absurd Prop8 poll on FoxNews. Go ahead and take a stab at it, but from my perspective, it's already been trashed — with numbers like this, it's already clearly down to battling bots duking it out. Did Judge Make Right Call In Gay Marriage Case? Yes -- Prop. 8 violates the Constitution. 47% (46,786 votes) No -- Marriage is an institution between a man and a woman. I don't care what the judge thinks about the Constitution. 46% (46,277 votes) I'm not sure but shouldn't the voters views count for something? 6% (6,321 votes)…
How can I resist? Eric Hovind does the usual trick of putting two reasonable answers on it to split the rational vote, but I think a good goal would be to simply make both of them crush the stupid creationist answer. What do you believe about evolution? It's a religion. 46% * It's a fact! 43% * It's a reasonable scientific theory. 11% Fly, my pretties! Destroy the poll! Corruption rules: that poll was utterly demolished in yet another way. After many votes were accumulated, Hovind changed the wording of the question to "What do you believe about creation?" without changing the…
It's a simple question. Do you think Livingston Parish public schools should teach creationism? Yes, evolution is a lie 22% Yes, so children can hear both sides 35% No, religion has no place in science class 29% No, we don't need to waste tax money on lawsuits 13% Don't know 1% I think readers here might have a slightly different set of answers than are up currently, though.
It's been a while. I hope you haven't forgotten. Here's an easy one to get you back in the swing of things. Do you think The Ten Commandments should be displayed in government buildings?" Yes 76% No 23% Undecided 1% It seems rather silly to post a bunch of laws, most of which everyone in the building will cheerfully ignore.