1994-03-12 - No Subject

Header Data

From: “Perry E. Metzger” <pmetzger@lehman.com>
To: rishab@dxm.ernet.in
Message Hash: 01bb029c10d1b408668e6a82c3ad9a0a8b8646a32d4797a9e85ac6c6d1c22d2b
Message ID: <9403121337.AA24389@andria.lehman.com>
Reply To: <gate.mBsZic1w165w@dxm.ernet.in>
UTC Datetime: 1994-03-12 13:37:33 UTC
Raw Date: Sat, 12 Mar 94 05:37:33 PST

Raw message

From: "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 94 05:37:33 PST
To: rishab@dxm.ernet.in
Subject: No Subject
In-Reply-To: <gate.mBsZic1w165w@dxm.ernet.in>
Message-ID: <9403121337.AA24389@andria.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



rishab@dxm.ernet.in says:
> 
> > "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich
> > Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of
> > phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps.
> > When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it."
> 
> Reminds me of the hilarious "How to lie with statistics". What 1000
> Americans?  The sort who read Time magazine? These are probably much
> more likely to be against Clipper anyway. Any Joe 6-packs? Probably
> not.

You are displaying not inconsiderable ignorance about Time magazine
and about such polls.  "Time" isn't terribly highbrow -- we aren't
talking "The Economist". Furthermore, Time/CNN polls are random sample
phone polls conducted by random sample by a fairly prestigious polling
company and simply stuck with the Time/CNN "brand name". Those polled
would not have been "Time" readers. Although you are correct in your
later assertion that the information may have been presented in a
slanted manner, it is likely that the sampling and statistical
techniques were rigorous.

Perry





Thread