People lie to interviewers conducting surveys because they are afraid or angry or have something to gain or something to lose or just out of boredom.

They tell the truth, in surveys, when the answer means nothing to them. A US middle class non-academic citizen will have no problem looking at two pieces of carpet and saying which he prefers.

But ask a north Korean if he loves the Dear Leader and is ready to die for him and he will always answer “yes! yes! yes!”. Ditto for cubans in cuba re Castro.

Ask a Sunni in Falujah a question designed to cause american troop withdrawals and you will get the answer you want.

There was more wrong with the Lancet study than sampling problems. The research technique was wrong, the interviewers who asked the questions biased the answers by their very presence and who they were, and the questionnaire was wrong.

The only thing the researchers did right was to make sure they got paid in American dollars.

Indeed, there seems to be two tactics here. The first is to claim, without any proof or standing, that any science that makes Republicans look bad (global warming, the Lancet study) is politicized; the second is to ignore it when science is in fact p…

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1345400,00.html

I should also point out that Shannon should read her Boyz Email account. Unless she’s had a chance to get in there lately, I sent her some messages and I’m not sure she’s seen them.

James