"Pro-Choice" Americans at Record-Low 41%

here is the most important part of the survey

Gallup's longest-running measure of abortion views, established in 1975, asks Americans if abortion should be legal in all circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances. Since 2001, at least half of Americans have consistently chosen the middle position, saying abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, and the 52% saying this today is similar to the 50% in May 2011. The 25% currently wanting abortion to be legal in all cases and the 20% in favor of making it illegal in all cases are also similar to last year's findings.
 
KingofOwls said:
also you are moving the goal posts now, as your first and primary objection was that 1024 wasn't a relevant sample size. remarking that it's "only 1024" people. Which is an ill-informed and uneducated statement.
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No it isn't. Sample size or not, it is still 1,024 people and not the entire country. You put a lot of stock in the science. I don't. There's the only difference between you and me. I'm not arguing the relevance of the sample size. For you it's relevant - I get that. For me, it isn't, because polls mean very little to me, for all the reasons I've already posted. You can dismiss it, and me, as you see fit. But my contention stands about the numbers, the skepticism, the margin of error, the deliberate framing of questions, the dishonesty found in those polled, etc.
 
Don Quixote said:
here is the most important part of the survey

Gallup's longest-running measure of abortion views, established in 1975, asks Americans if abortion should be legal in all circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances. Since 2001, at least half of Americans have consistently chosen the middle position, saying abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, and the 52% saying this today is similar to the 50% in May 2011. The 25% currently wanting abortion to be legal in all cases and the 20% in favor of making it illegal in all cases are also similar to last year's findings.
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Exactly. As I said, self-identification is meaningless.
 
Rana said:
People lie, like me, when contacted by pollsters.
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Makes very little difference in the overall picture of things, without some large organized movement by the American people with the specific purpose of answering questions wrong and making polls meaningless.
 
Bijou said:
You keep saying that in a failed attempt to ensure that your numbers can't be doubted. Deal with it - they can be, and are. That's why many of us put no stock in polls. They are deliberately misleading.
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They can be doubted with a 5% chance of the results being farther than 5% from the stated values.
 
KingofOwls said:
not everything I post implies I want to have an argument. I just thought it was interesting. Then we got into debating the validity of statistical sample sizes. As if 1024 doesn't speak for millions of people, when it clearly can, and does.
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Once you get above a certain population size, the size of population becomes almost irrelevant to the accuracy of the poll, and a sample size of 1000 or so is good for whatever population size you may have.
 
Bijou said:
But the 'science' is no guarantee that the questions asked and answers obtained reflect the truth about a certain subject
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It never claimed 100% confidence. There is no such thing as absolute truth, that is a fools errand. It specifically stated it's level of accuracy: 95% within 5%.
 
Bijou said:
Yes it does matter. 1,024 people is 1,024 people, not the entire country. Doesn't matter what the 'science' of statistics is, nor the 'science' to the way questions are framed to elicit particular answers. 1,024 people does not equate to the entire country.
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It also very much depends on how the sampling was done, did they elicit responses from every state and demographics?
 
Bijou said:
You don't have to continue repeating it. I heard you the first two times. What your 'fact' ignores is the 'fact' that people LIE; questions and answers are deliberately framed for specific effect, and that the 'science' isn't perfect, it leaves room for error, and that plus-or-minus only ASSUMES that the other two factors are sincere and accurate.
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It is certainly "possible" that they called 1000 people and enough people randomly decided to lie about their actual opinions to make a meaningful difference in the polls. I suppose it's possible that everyone you run into tomorrow is going to vote for the Green party tomorrow as well. However, this is not a possibility meaningful enough to bother considering. Such things are random, they are simply noise, they vary from the signal, but the signal still emerges. Again, unless this were organized, it would have no effect on the meaningfulness of polls at all - an average of polls is still going to have a meaningful signal.
 
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