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Re: [Phys-L] science +- politics +- religious denominations (plural)

The PEW forum shows similar results as I recall to the Gallup poll.

The fact that TX is a very red state and that the gov. claims that ID or
Creationism is taught in school is very indicative of the situation. As to
religious belief, it is compatible with science, but not for a large number
of people. Specific groups hold beliefs such as the bible as being inerrent
and that it contains scientific truths. But for others the bible is not a
book of science or math.

If people try to conceal their true beliefs one would think that the percent
of the population that believes in the young Earth cosmology with
correspondly special creation of humans is actually lower. But just look at
the major politicians who espouse this point of view, including the former
US president. So the numbers are very reasonable.

We live in bubbles of more scientifically rational individuals, but still we
probably come across people who hold this fundamentalist ideology. I know
of at least 3 teachers in former schools. One denied evolution but as a
geologist teaching in a college he confirmed the standard geology and
cosmology. I also knew a graduate student in physics when I was getting my
degree who was a creationist and young Earther. Here in TX, the problem is
very evident. A friend who is the director of a nature center pointed out
to one of her teachers that having the word "EVOLUTION" on the wall would
alienate their clients who home school. The teacher said he didn't care.

Some PEW forums sites that are relevant are:
http://www.pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Religious-Groups-Views-on-Evol
ution.aspx
They also show that congress breaks down as protestants tending to be
Republican, while Catholics are more evenly divided. Evangelicals are the
most anti-science group among the religious, and they are usually
Republican.
http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Public-Divided-on-Origins-of-
Life.aspx

They claim that 42% adhere to special creation ideas. The Big problem is
that:
"Nearly two-thirds (63%) of those who take a creationist point of view say
they are very certain about how life developed." while others are less
certain. This points to how they are offended by standard science in school
and want it removed. This type of rigidity in thought makes them more
likely to push for their way of thinking. Basically when questioned they
believe that things like evolution or global warming are controversial among
scientists. Where was their education????

You can dig out all kinds of statistics about anti-science attitudes from
the PEW surveys. I just referenced a couple of sites on the large PEW web
site. It is really a no brainer that anti-science attitudes are correlated
fairly strongly with political affiliation, and this is because of specific
religious groups. Again why has education failed in regards to science?

Some countries actually bend over backwards to accomdate religion. I know
of a case where a person was allowed to wear a collander on his head because
he claimed he was a "Pastafarian". You can look it up, and it really
exists, sort of.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX






In June of 2012, as a fellow in DC, I had the great pleasure
of meeting with the directors of research at the Pew Center.
The group was small and statistics savvy, about 12 of us, and
they carefully explained what they did to try to undo the
biases that RT is talking about. 

In short, it is hard. The dirty secret of the industry is
that most people won't talk to pollsters and much of the rest
of the population is hard to find.

Pew works on finding those people and they believe they are
better at that than the other firms.

First, they want to protect their image as being non-partisan
by not asking leading questions and by hiding in some ways
even the subject of their poll by adding additional
questions. Second, they do polls just to discover who answers
polls. As a side note, they are allowed to call people on Do
Not Call Lists as they aren't selling anything.  As RT
figures, people with and without cellphones are different
sorts of people. More on that later. Pew tracks them down in
a variety of ways, but the key one is that Pew will call back
at the pollee's convenience and Pew pays them with gift cards
or credits to their account. It makes polling more expensive
but seems to make it more accurate as well. 

Pew handles the problem from another angle.  They use some of
the above additional questions to cross reference to make
sure that they are getting the full scope of the population.
For example, even on a poll on say teaching they might ask if
people watch motor sports. They have reason to know from
other polling how much of the population watches motor sports
and if they don't find that in their sample now, there might
be a problem with their sample.

They also over sample parts of the population that are small
so that the randomness of answers doesn't blow up the data
for a subset group. Every book on stats says you have to do
this, but most polling groups don't do it since it is very expensive.

Finally, Pew is endowed and independent. They don't take
money from any group and do the polling that interests them.
They don't have to generate press to drum up business. 

The consequence of this is that Pew surveys seem to be better
than most, demonstrated out by national and local elections.

This was made clear last June. At the time Pew was explaining
to us how different their polling was compared to other
groups, especially Gallop which they heavily criticized for
its failure to handle cellphones and younger parts of the
population. They emphasized at the time that Gallop and
others were going to get the election wrong if they didn't
fix their problems. Well, they didn't fix their problems and
you could see the results the day after the election.

Marc "Zeke" Kossover
Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow 2011-2012
National Science Foundation



________________________________
From: Richard Tarara <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>
To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
Sent: Saturday, June 8, 2013 10:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Phys-L] science +- politics +- religious denominations
(plural)


Back to the Gallop poll that has been a major focus over the
past week.

I've discussed this with a number of people, including one
who is very
savvy in the media (owned our city newspaper, is CEO of a
consortium of
radio stations, and teaches at the Cronkite School of Journalism as
ASU) and no one gives any credence to the figures. Maybe
Texas is like
this, but here in Indiana I don't know a soul (liberal,
conservative,
Republican, Democrat, or Independent who could be included
in the 58,
41, 39% stated in the survey--(sure there are some, put my personal
'statistics' don't support the numbers).

All of which brings to my mind the question of how one does a really
random survey today?  Most people with half a brain are on NO-CALL
lists and refuse any phone surveys that 'illegally' make it
through. 
We see every political season (is there an 0ff-season?) that
polls are
not necessarily that accurate.  EXACTLY how questions are framed can
clearly sway responses.  I've started and then discontinued
a number of
surveys (often ones requested by my school) when the sequence and/or
tone of the questions were clearly trying to get a certain
response (or
to prove some psycho-babble point or other).

To really believe the poll in question, we have to conclude we are a
nation of illiterate idiots--and I guess I'm not quite ready to buy
into that.  (We are not the sharpest tacks in the world, but.....)

A last thought here---religious belief, while not
necessarily aligned
with scientific illiteracy, sets us up to disbelieve what we
want.  If
belief in 'fairy tales' is OK, to be respected (at least tolerated),
then disbelief in almost anything else is easy to fall into.  As
scientists we all decry the fact that so many dismiss the
science, but
we 'go along' with or even share in the religious beliefs. 
Not sure we
can really have it both ways!

rwt


--
Richard Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College

free Physics educational software
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html

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