PROBLEMS WITH POLLING….Taegan Goddard gives us a preview of The Opinion Makers, by David W. Moore:
The author — a former senior editor of the Gallup Poll — says that today’s opinion polls misfire due to an intrinsic methodological problem: survey results don’t differentiate between “those who express deeply held views and those who have hardly, if at all, thought about an issue.”
This is disturbing. Either Moore managed to find a publisher for a book thesis about as obvious as “college students like to drink,” or else Moore’s thesis actually isn’t as bog obvious as I think it is. I’m not sure which is worse.
Or there’s a third option: his thesis really is as obvious as I think it is, but everyone keeps pretending not to know it anyway. Which means it’s worth a book. Good luck, David!
