Pointless polls
pharyngula | September 22, 2009CNN is cutting to the chase:
Do you believe in God?
Yes 69%
No 31%
This poll will rack up big numbers, I suspect, so don't expect a big turn-around…but do get in there and make a tiny little popping noise as you click and drop in your contribution!
pharyngula | September 18, 2009Greg Laden is entirely correct the case in question reference by this poll is about some teachers who are being tried for contempt of court, and this particular court case is not about separation of church and state. However, the poll is asking a more general question:
Should educators be fined or jailed for offering prayer in public schools?
Yes (12.6%)
No (87.4%)
I say yes: teachers who organize sectarian prayer in their classroom are betraying their trust and are in violation of the principle of separation of church and state. Imagine the outcry if a teacher were a Satanist and tried to…
pharyngula | September 8, 2009A group of prominent Swedes have come out with a manifesto decrying the influence of religion in the world — which is great, but I do wonder why every time I read about famous Swedes, at least one of them has to be a former member of ABBA. It's a fine statement that promotes humanism as the only valid source of morality.
Anyway, a Danish newspaper ran a poll asking if its readers agree. Here it is:
Tolv fremtrædende svenskere blæser i manifest til kamp mod religioner, som de mener fylder alt for meget i samfundet. Er du enig? (Twelve prominent Swedes fan of manifesto to fight against…
pharyngula | September 3, 2009This is how to design an online poll to stymie the Pharyngulistas: make sure it makes no sense and limits the options to only unpalatable choices. Go ahead and try and figure this one out…although it does say it is for creationists, and it is for Christians only.
Why Creationist is your favorite?
15% (3)Kent Hovind
5% (1)Ken Ham
36% (7)Both
42% (8)Neither... someone else
"Why creationist," indeed.
pharyngula | September 3, 2009Seed is planning to roll out some big upgrades to the commenting system here, and they're going to potentially add a lot of new features, which is cool. They also want to know what you think, but they've chosen to get user input in a way I find rather uncomfortable. They're doing it with an online poll.
Oh, no. Hoist by my own petard.
You better go vote, before the Rapture-lovin' fundagelicals move in and voice their opinions, and we end up with every comment ending in a honkin' big sig with huge-eyed puppy dogs and pink script with sparkly graphic effects.
pharyngula | September 3, 2009President Obama is going to deliver a speech to students, broadcast on CSPAN, on 8 September. He's going to "speak directly to the nation's children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning". OK, sounds harmless enough, and I think it's a good idea for our president to care about the students.
But not in Texas, apparently. There's a poll on a College Station radio site that has some odd results.
What are your feelings about the President addressing school children…
pharyngula | September 1, 2009When we hit that poll at Sedalia the other day, the newspaper noticed — they actually have a news story on their poll being crashed.
Richard DeFord, The Sedalia Democrat interactive systems manager, said Saturday's online paper had 25,118 page views, Sunday had 22,096 and as of 4:40 p.m. Monday had 70,939.
If views continue at the current rate, DeFord said, it will reach 90,406 before the night is done. DeFord said Monday's views indicate the story is viral, or has become popular in a short period of time.
Of those views, many originated from as far away as London, England; Sydney and…
pharyngula | August 30, 2009Via ERV and Coyne, I've learned that there was a poll associated with that story about the yanked evolution shirts for the Smith-Cotton band program. You must pharyngulate this poll!
Should the Sedalia school district have pulled the Smith-Cotton High School band T-shirts?
Yes, the evolution image was inappropriate
29%
No, critics and the district are overreacting
71%
pharyngula | August 24, 2009CNN has tossed up a scientific issue for a vote.
Should Pluto be reinstated as a planet?
Yes83%
No17%
It's as if changing the title of a piece of rock in space suddenly changes its physical characteristics, and if enough people truly believe, it will be so.
pharyngula | August 22, 2009Governor Charlie Crist of Florida has been sending prayers off to Israel every year…and now he wants to claim responsibility for averting hurricanes. Isn't that just so sweet? Now you can let Florida know what you think of their governor in an extremely objective and scientifically valid online poll.
Gov. Crist said he's had prayer notes placed in the Western Wall in Jerusalem each year and no major storms have hit Florida.
Another good reason not to vote for him! 53%
It is good to know that we have a leader that believes in the power of prayer. 32%
Don't knock it. Whatever works! 10%…
pharyngula | August 19, 2009Uh-oh. Reed Cartwright asks specifically that we don't game this poll, but doesn't having me link to it automatically bias the results? Well maybe not. It's a poll to vote on your favorite geological specimen in a small set of photos. There's nothing there that could selectively stir the godless hordes…but wait! Is that a squid in one of them?
Anyway, vote for the one that appeals to you most. You can even vote if you are a creationist, no one cares.
pharyngula | August 19, 2009Come on, if Texas can open a Camp Quest, what's your state's excuse?
There's also a nice article with a poll on the new godless camp — it's mostly positive, but they do go out of their way to get a quote from a dissenter.
But Dr. Darrell Bock of the Dallas Theological Seminary doesn't believe that being more vocal will have much impact. "People pretty much have their minds made up on these kinds of matters. They're either going to be for or against," he said.
Hey, that's good news! Dr Darrell Bock of the Dallas Theological Seminary has just declared evangelism dead. Do you think the…
pharyngula | August 17, 2009But the sentiment is worthy. There is a petition you can sign asking the British government to express some public remorse for what was done to Alan Turing. I'm sure you all know who he was, but just in case…
Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code and told us how to tell whether a machine could think.
He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a 'cure', and took his own life, aged 41.
The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment…
pharyngula | August 5, 2009We uppity obnoxious "New Atheists" often get called "militant" or "rabid" or even "fundamentalist", and unless you're doing it as a joke, it's highly inappropriate. Real rabid radicals do things like these animal rights lunatics, who have targeted the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, setting fire to his vacation home and stealing his mother's ashes from her gravesite. Now that is unconscionable and damaging behavior.
The site also has a poll, if you've been pining away for one lately. Maybe you can express how the actions of the real militants make you feel.
Animal research:
Is necessary
43…
pharyngula | July 31, 2009A much-abused study showed that in poor neighborhoods with low academic opportunities, better scholastic performance was correlated with church attendance. This slim thread has been seized upon by religious apologists to justify claims that church attendance improves kids' grades, and is usually accompanied by anecdotes about good church-going children being studious and diligent. The evidence is poor and getting worse, how low can it sink?
You know where it can go, to the worthless world of the internet poll.
Do you think attending church can improve kids' grades?
Yes 52%No 36%Don't know 12…
pharyngula | July 27, 2009Not long ago, we had a story about the University of Wyoming shutting down their geology museum. Now the issue has become…an online poll! We know what to do with online polls, don't we, boys and girls?
Should UW put funds into keeping the Geological Museum open?
Yes, it needs to be open all the time.
(935 Votes, 60%)
Yes, but they were right to open it part-time to save money.
(516 Votes, 33%)
No, they need to close whatever keeps them financially sound.
(72 Votes, 5%)
They should turn the museum into a skate park and make some cash instead.
(29 Votes, 2%)
pharyngula | July 23, 2009Someone in Kissimmee, Florida got it into their head that the city logo was lacking in pointless accolades to their deity, so they want to jam one in. There's a poll, of course.
Kissimmee city commissioners are considering putting "In God We Trust" on a new city logo. Commissioner Art Otero says he proposed the change because he doesn't like the way the country is headed. Commissioner Carlos Irizarry questioned its legal advisability. The ACLU says it discriminates in favor of religions that believe in one God.
Should Kissimmee add "In God We Trust" to its official city logo?
Yes. It's a…
pharyngula | July 20, 2009I await the day when someone proposes to put a sign advocating godlessness on a bus, and the Christians and Muslims are so accustomed to it that they regard it with complete nonchalance. That day isn't here yet, as we can see by all the ongoing perturbation at very simple, innocuous statements. Now Vienna is joining in, and of course we get a poll. We can see that even in secular Europe there are people who are disturbed by mere signage. Go say hello from America (and Australia and Europe and all the other places you're from) and give some worldwide input to this silly poll.
Was ist Ihre…
pharyngula | July 17, 2009Some polls you know are just set up to try and get affirmations of what the pollster believes. Others are more inscrutable. Why would CNN even bother to ask this?
Do you believe the Apollo moon landings were faked?
Yes 14%
No 86%
It's meta-meaninglessness. I was tempted to vote yes, not because I think the moon landings were faked (shee-ya, you'd have to be a raving moron to think that), but because the poll question was so freakishly crazy.
But then, I guess that's what the modern media does. It doesn't evaluate; its job is just to treat every point of view as if they were equally sensible.
pharyngula | July 16, 2009Polls are bad enough, but the editorial that went with this one is something else. A group is lobbying to slap a bunch of religious phrases on the US Capitol Visitor's Center, and their rationale is inane.
The engravings will cost less than $100,000 of the center's total $621 million price tag. Fighting this silly lawsuit will probably cost more than the engravings themselves.
One hundred thousand dollars isn't peanuts, and the argument that nobody should oppose them because it will cost even more money is ridiculous — if economy is a concern, then don't vandalize the building in the first…