Friday, July 25, 2008

JJ still sadly trying to discredit poll results that say 55% of Canadians disapprove of Morgentaler receiving Order of Canada

Says JJ:

Re-reading SUZANNE's post, it's clear she's missing the point -- the issue isn't whether a CPC MP's brother runs a polling firm. The issue is that an Anti-abortion MP's very likely equally anti-abortion brother conducted a poll for an anti-abortion organization -- a poll conducted by an ideological ally automatically has no credibility.Legitimate pollsters are expected to be non-partisan, even if the people who commission them are not


"Very likely equally anti-abortion brother".

Do we know that for sure? No. It's all speculation.

The pollsters all have their parti-pris. When I worked for the Provincial Liberals in Quebec way back when, it was widely known that Leger and Leger was sold out to the sovereignists and that we should add five points to any Liberal result. And we were right.

The credibility of a poll is what it is. Someone who is investigating that deeply into a poll and then cries "optics is what's important!" is protesting too much. Someone who never bothered to research the issue might be forgiven for saying "I've never heard of these guys" and dismiss them. But these folks are trying to find reasons not to believe the poll. That's the sad part. They don't like the poll, so they say "Hey! That can't be right! There must be something fishy about this poll!"

So they investigate and find that they don't like the people who commissioned and conducted the poll.

But that doesn't change the poll.

The poll is what the poll is: 157 000 households were contacted. 13 000 responded. 55% opposed the Order of Canada going to Morgentaler. The survey sample is far more representative of anything any newspaper can produce.

The credibility of criticisms is also affected by the tactic of those making them. They're crowing about credibility, but their procedure for critiquing the poll lacks credibility. Their view is: if anything smacks of the pro-life cause, it's wrong.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. That's an extremely biased viewpoint. People who believe in fetal rights are as capable of being neutral as people who do not believe in fetal rights. They cry "bias" when they're being biased themselves.

Dismissing a poll because of a firm owner's alleged position on abortion (which is assumed to be pro-life, therefore, not credible) is not credible at all.

It's a matter of throwing mud and seeing what sticks. It has nothing to do with the poll itself.

If another firm with none of those associations conducted the same poll it would produce the same results within the 1.5% error of margin, 19 times out of 20.

That is the truth. They can't face it. It does not matter who the polling company owners are.

The issue is, as it has been from the first Canada 411 search I did on this "polling company", the poll's legitimacy and the subterfuge behind it.


Again, more speculation, more assumptions, more ignorance.

The poll has not been critiqued. This has been about the firm owner. The critiques that have been made about the poll: that it didn't exist, that its response rate is poor, have been disproven.

Again, the "subterfuge" angle is just speculation. What facts do they have?

None. They don't like what they see, they go fishing for things to undermine the poll and the company, and then jump to conclusions that bolster their pro-abortion cause.

Then they change their story.

They never question their own speculation or conclusions before they have the cold hard facts.

That's not credible, folks. That's called throwing mud.

The cake itself is a misleading poll with questionable methodology,


And that conclusion is based on what exactly? 157 000 random household phone numbers were used. That's sound. They were phoned. The respondents listened to the question and then they pressed "1" or "2" according to the response.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

Any telephone poll will have methodological issues. This one had the advantage of being extremely straightforward and quick, and of having an extremely large number of respondents. It's hard to dis a survey of 13 000 randomly-selected households. There's a 1.5% margin of error. That's nothing to sneeze at. But I guess they're so desperate to disprove this result that they're furiously working to find mud to throw at it.

If this poll was as non-credible as they say it is, it'd be obvious. They wouldn't have to dig up "dirt" about the polling firm. The polling question and methodology would speak for itself. So they have to rely on undermining "credibility"-- which is really code for: we have to show that the people who did this poll are pro-lifers, and pro-lifers are always biased, but non-pro-lifers never are.

That's really sad. They can't confront the poll and the results.



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