Yesterday (Sun.7/10/07) the Sunday Independent printed about four or five full pages by various journalists on differing aspects of a survey commissioned by that newspaper.This publication had a glaring headline referring to the fact (i.e.result) that Bertie Ahern was still favoured by the 'public',were an election to be held now.
On reading on I discovered that this was a telephone poll and furthermore the numbers polled were 400.
The question must be asked how on earth this ''poll'' can be acceptable in any newspaper worthy of the name,no matter how 'professional' the pollsters are.Surely 400 from a population of over 4 million (by phone) must be the laziest ever carried out ,and then to practically fill their news with the so-called ''results''.
From memory of , statistical formulae , I think that the standard deviation , in random selection polls , to make any sense , . has to have some reasonable relationship between the numbers chosen and the population from which the samples are chosen .his nonsense is then used to make headlines and fill space....shame on you ..Sunday Indo.....
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