Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site cmu-cs-cad.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!zehntel!tektronix!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cmu-cs-cad!mjc From: mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: Statistics Message-ID: <280@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA> Date: Mon, 4-Feb-85 00:41:08 EST Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-c.280 Posted: Mon Feb 4 00:41:08 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Feb-85 07:14:34 EST Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 19 [ 43% of all statistics are meaningless. ] From: rlgvax!ccice5!ccice6!daf@seismo (David Fader) >My polls show that most people that were asked by me (over 70%) >would favor an abortion prohibiting law except in cases of severe >birth defects (e.g. a condition where the infant is born with no brain), >danger to the mother's life,incest and rape. But there's one little problem you seem to be overlooking. What did you do, go out and ask your friends? Do you find it hard to believe that you and your friends might share similar political views? What *method* did you use to make this a valid poll? If you want to say that 70% of your friends oppose abortion, fine, but if you're going to try to generalize from that to the general public, back it up with a valid method. -Dragon -- UUCP: ...ucbvax!dual!lll-crg!dragon ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg