This conversation only gets better by people making themselves a positive model for others. Improve this conversation by the addition of your own example.

We accept all types of folks from all varieties of belief. Tell us about yourself! Where are you in this journey, and what have you to add to the dialog here?

Welcome!

So the solution is to make it even more discordant with reality, by changing whose bias it reflects?

Sorry, but I think showing that it’s a flawed poll makes it MORE concordant with reality.

That may very well be the case. But then that should be made clear at the outset.

This post isn’t the outset. I’ll admit if you’re just joining in the conversation right now, the intentions might not be clear.

But there’s currently a kind of a fad on atheist blogs that PZ Myers has going right now where there’s some poll-crashing. If you’re following this, it has been made clear in the past that this is indeed what we’re doing. Even commenters on the US News poll story covering this have stated this outright, saying “expect unscientific polls to have unscientific results.” So I think that’s pretty clear.

One might anticipate that scientific poll advocates would be interested in crashing all unscientific polls and not just ones that concern issues where atheists have strong opinions related to their atheism.

Well, if you want, you go create a “scientific poll advocate” website, and urge all of your readers to do this.

This is an atheist website, and for the most part, the posts are on-topic to atheism related issues.

Curious, to say the least.

What’s curious about it? We care about what we care about, and part of that is to create a conversation. We took lemons and made lemonade, and now there’s a conversation about the validity of self-selecting internet polls on the US News website.

It’s about engaging the conversation, which is what this website is all about.

Fair enough.

That it emulates an opinion poll, and that you seem to think that an UN-borked poll reflects in some fashion “the reality of American opinion” IS *exactly* the problem.

The reality of American opinion is pretty obvious to me, as it must be to you, since you said that the poll results were “so out of whack from reality.” And “an UN-borked poll” would be closer to that reality for not having been encouraged to be “borked” in the first place. We know what the reality is from scientific polls in the past on similar topics, such as public opinion on removing public displays of religiosity or under God from the pledge. The overwhelming majority of Americans have no problem with those things, either because they’re religious themselves or, if secular, because they realize how trivial the issue is no matter which way it goes. I’m sorry, but “one nation under God” doesn’t equal theocracy unless you’re a vampire and hearing the word God causes you to recoil in pain or fear–which is a pretty pathetic but accurate characterization of some narrow-minded atheists if you ask me.

Why do you care?

I only expressed an opinion after seeing that I wasn’t the only one holding it. My comments were meant largely for the person I was responding to, whom I quoted. That you have to tolerate voices of dissent from your own view is the price of living in a free country. I have the freedom to think differently than you do, and express that disagreement, whether you like it or not.

I think when a poll like this is heavily biased to begin with

So the solution is to make it even more discordant with reality, by changing whose bias it reflects?

self-selected among people who read the religion section of the website

You have a point there.

We’re pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. And the ONLY way to do that is to participate in the poll. Which worked, btw, and US News was forced to admit it.

That may very well be the case. But then that should be made clear at the outset.

Otherwise people might get the impression that the purpose of crashing the party was to influence the perception of how many people are opposed to inaugural prayers, and not the true purpose of crashing the party: to show that unscientific polls are worthless.

It’s odd, though, that if the true purpose of crashing the party is simply to show that unscientific polls are worthless, atheists only urge other atheists to crash them when their topic concerns atheism, religion, or sep. of church & state. One might anticipate that scientific poll advocates would be interested in crashing all unscientific polls and not just ones that concern issues where atheists have strong opinions related to their atheism.

Curious, to say the least.

Clearly, the game is trying to distort perceptions–else you wouldn’t be playing it.

I think the “game” is to prove that these polls are pointless.

Which is exactly the point that got shown in this instance, where the news organization was forced to admit that this poll was giving an answer so out of whack from reality.

Frankly that a supposed news organization would even RUN a poll that was this unscientific reflects extremely poorly on their organization and what they consider newsworthy and what they put their reputation beside.

It’s an easy, stupid big of Java code that masquerades as interactivity for a news website. That it emulates an opinion poll, and that you seem to think that an UN-borked poll reflects in some fashion “the reality of American opinion” IS *exactly* the problem.

Whether Internet polls are accurate is a red herring, of course. No one says they are.

Then why do people participate in them? Why do you care?

I think that some people DO think they are. I think some people DO think that (even if not scientific) they still give something like a reliable answer, otherwise why would you object to us notifying people that they should vote on them?

I think when a poll like this is heavily biased to begin with (self-selected among people who read the religion section of the website), we have a *responsibility* to show that it’s not a reliable way to gauge public opinion.

We’re pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. And the ONLY way to do that is to participate in the poll. Which worked, btw, and US News was forced to admit it.

The poll is unscientific, to be sure, but the game of trying to vote multiple times, and/or soliciting as many people as possible to vote your way (perhaps themselves voting multiple times) is certainly a dishonest game. Do you deny that atheists answering the call to crash the poll are not trying to rally as many atheists as possible to vote a certain way, and hoping as few Christians as possible vote the other way? Gimme a break…

Clearly, the game is trying to distort perceptions–else you wouldn’t be playing it. Just like when atheists pretend that those who answer “None of the Above” on scientific polls are also atheists, in order to pad their numbers tenfold–even when the polls themselves directly show otherwise. Subtle lying is still lying–but the end justifies the means when you have an agenda to push, right?

You’re right that people shouldn’t rely on Internet polls as accurate, but obviously some people do, or else there’d be no point in taking Internet polls and participating in them.

Whether Internet polls are accurate is a red herring, of course. No one says they are. The issue is that people are being urged to influence the poll results. What ever could be the reason why?

Let the poll reflect the reality of American opinion,

Oh, you seem to think that the non-statistical sampling of voluntary internet “click here if you agree” polls reflect the reality of the broader American opinion.

Interesting.

I don’t participate in this sort of dishonesty myself. Artificially inflating the perception of how many people agree with you is just anathema to me. Let the poll reflect the reality of American opinion, and quit trying to “pad the resume” in pursuit of some bullshit political agenda. Accept your real size and adapt accordingly, instead of creating optical illusions so that other people think that you’re bigger than you really are.

Most people are only interested in pushing their personal agendas. Of course, someone as smart as Obama recognizes this, and thus likely puts everything he hears from multitudes of clamoring push groups into the “junk mail” pile headed for the trashbin, leaving the real mail (like the economy) on his desk to deal with.

For my part, I’m much more interested in determining what’s true than adding more bullshit to the mountain of BS we already have to sift through on a daily basis.