"Republicans Have Found Their Dream Leader and His Name Is Vladimir Putin"

[go west young man]

39. Here's alink to an interesting article on PEW studies and how they skew results...

the article is written by a person who worked in polling for PEW. He cites the exact same scenario I am implying is off. His results however, deal with Judaism in America but apply to PEW as a whole. http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/149510/the-problem-with-the-pew-study

Here's an excerpt:

Where Pew falls especially short, though, is in its analysis of the Orthodox, a group that constitutes but 10 percent or so of the American Jewish population. However, Pew pays significant attention to the Orthodox, dividing this segment into three subcategories and focusing in other ways on this relatively small portion of American Jewry.

The problems begin with the subdivision. A case can be made that inasmuch as there are no subcategories for Reform and Conservatives, there shouldn’t be for the Orthodox. The Reform are said to constitute three and a half times the number of Orthodox, on its face an absurd statistic. If the Orthodox have Modern and Haredi subcategories, why not subcategories for Reform, such as “weak Reform” or “non-participating Reform?”

Pew claims that all it does is rely on self-identity. It should not be able to have things both ways.

The reliance on self-identity is problematic because inevitably it means that persons included in the report as Orthodox may be thus identified because that’s the only synagogue they are members of or go to, but who in fact are far from Orthodox in practice. Half a century ago in the American Jewish Year Book, Charles Liebman published a seminal study of the nominal Orthodox, people who in practice deviate significantly from Orthodox norms.

Over a period of more than two decades, I have been involved in what is called the Guttman research in Israel, focusing on the practices and beliefs of Israeli Jews. Guttman relies primarily on scaling, so that behavior and beliefs—and not self-identity—are the critical determinants of Orthodoxy. A case can be made for Pew’s preference for self-identity, but it needs to be accompanied by an acknowledgement that there is an alternative approach and that by including persons who by behavior and attitude are not Orthodox, the statistics for attrition away from Orthodox are badly skewed.


Essentially this seems to be the same problem of their polling for Russian Orthodox. All of Russia may say they "identify" but do they give a shit? The answer is no they don't.


And let me give you one more PEW study. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/03/18/pew-study-finds-msnbc-the-most-opinionated-cable-news-channel-by-far/ There is PEW for ya. They are saying that MSNBC is far more opinionated than Fox. Is that possible? After 20 years of Fox lies and horrible opinion that led to war, we have PEW saying MSNBC is more opinionated. PEW cannot be trusted.