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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (29366)	4/16/2010 8:08:44 AM
From: GROUND ZERO™	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

PS --- by your description, practically no human pharmaceutical research could be 'scientific' either since it is considered unethical to without useful medications once there is clear evidence of utility. Not correct... pharmaceutical companies do use control groups and they're typically given a placebo... the variable is the active drug in those studies... (I've done several. And quite a bit of college course work in survey research prior.) All well and good, and as well I've taken numerous graduate courses in experimental design as a prerequisite while en route to my doctorate, which I completed... as far as polls go --- you are simply ASKING PEOPLE their OPINIONS. (So there is no such thing as a 'control group' since you are not trying to influence/persuade then later measure the impact of that persuasion.) Yes, this is correct, and this means it cannot be scientific... a poll is not scientific since it doesn't adhere to the scientific method... the scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses, there is no hypothesis tested when you merely ask someone an opinion... you can't call it scientific... And to use proper experimental design in your poll, you would have to be sure the questions are not worded to bias a particular response, the people being asked have to be so varied based on background, ethnicity, education, and so on in order to attempt fairness and accuracy... but none of it is scientific since no hypothesis is being tested... GZ