The Problem With Polls About Whether Obama Is a Muslim

[steve2470]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/the-problem-with-polls-about-whether-obama-is-a-muslim/254380/

Liberal blogs and sites are having a field day with new data from Public Policy Polling that shows that 52 percent of Mississippi Republican believe President Obama is a Muslim (a comparatively slight 45 percent of Alabama GOP voters agreed with them). Huffington Post had a banner headline Monday morning branding it a "SHOCK POLL," Talking Points Memo smirked at those southern bumpkins, and Daily Kos deadpanned, "Alabama and Mississippi Republicans don't believe in evolution ... but do believe Obama is a Muslim."

PPP, which is a Democratic firm, is sometimes maligned for being an unreliable pollster, but in this case the biggest problem is that they're asking the question at all. The belief that Obama is a Muslim, like the belief that he is somehow not an American citizen, is pernicious and flatly wrong. It has also been rejected by the vast majority of the American body politic, although there are some glaring examples of politicians who flirt with it to score political points. But if the goal is to fight mistaken beliefs, this is the wrong way to do it. The Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan has researched misperceptions and conspiracy-theory belief in America politics. In particular, he and colleague Jason Reifler have found that false ideas, once introduced, are very hard to get rid of. One especially bad way to fight them is to reiterate them:

The more times a false claim is repeated, the more likely people are to be exposed to it. The fewer people exposed to a false claim, the less likely it is to spread. It is also important not to repeat false claims because people are more likely to judge familiar claims as true. As false claims are repeated, they become more familiar and thus may come to seem more true to people.

The pollsters, by asking the question, and news outlets, by gleefully publicizing the results, are playing into this vicious cycle.

[zipplewrath]

1. Heisenburg uncertainty principle at work

By trying to measure something, you affect it.

[Johonny]

2. push polling has worked for them for years and years

[HopeHoops]

3. I don't care if he's a Tibetan monk who strictly believes "Romeo and Juliet" was real.

He's a damn good president, cares about the country and the world, and he can construct complete, syntactically accurate, and meaningful sentences - STRUNG TOGETHER even!!! The world finally accepts us as having a real leader again. Palin would kick us back at least to the Quayle bullshit (and it's tough to say this, but she really is dumber).

Fine. Lets have the dumbfucks have their way. They can all go out at Camp Gitmore and fight a new civil war from there. Works for me. It doesn't have any territorial battles anywhere in the states. Go for it assholes - book a plane to Cuba. I hear the fares are fairly inexpensive this time of year. Bye. Don't let the tarmac hit you in the ass on the way out. Send a postcard - just not to me.

[Sheepshank]

4. BUT...these are the very same people that complained that Obama was influenced...

....for 30 years by Rev. Wright in a Christian church.

So which is it?

I wish the poll had asked whether Obama was more influenced by Rev. Wright or by Islam. Now THAT would have been an interesting poll result lol.

[saras]

5. The problem is that POLLING on a matter of established FACT is a form of propaganda.

The people who CHOOSE TO DO THE POLLING - THAT DECIDE A POLL IS AN APPROPRIATE PUBLIC FORUM - are deliberate, conscious propagandists - or else they're too stupid to have the expertise necessary to design polls.

Poll, daily, on whether the Tea Party is extreme enough to not deserve the protection of law. Every day, for the next year.