Michael Atherton wrote:
The List Manager posted:
...that's what a Clean Air Minneapolis survey of city residents claims....
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4797883.html
This story illustrates a few of things about the misuse of surveys:
1. It shows that surveys can be statistically valid and still misrepresent their implications.
2. It shows that even groups espousing "good" causes can use unscrupulous methods to try and achieve their ends.
3. It shows that the news media often doesn't take the time to present balanced arguments to the public.
Michael Atherton
Prospect Park
I'm baffled at how Mr. Atherton draws these conclusions.
1. True, statistics can be valid and be used to misrepresent a situation (implications are always drawn by people -- one cannot blame the statistics themselves for misrepresenting an implication as that attributes a conscience to an inanimate object). But among all the surveys we see year in and year out, this report does not seem to show any glaring abuse or misuse. There's no obvious evidence of choosing the questions or wording of the questions such as to draw the kind of responses wanted to support a position. There's no obvious evidence of selecting an audience or issue to get the results desired and then applying those results to a slightly different though similar sounding issue.
The survery asked if people supported a smoking ban, and 72% said yes. That's hardly surprising given that roughly 70% to 80% of the population is non-smoking.
So, how does this article show that the survery misreprented something? Or how does the article misrepresent what the survey found?
2. True, sometimes "good" causes succumb to using unscrupulous methods because they are easier, more powerful and used by their opponents. But how does this story show that? The group hired an independent research firm to guage the public's feeling about a number of aspects regarding the issues of public smoking laws. How is that unscrupulous?
3. True, the media often (most of the time, when speaking of the popular press and broadcast media) fails to present balanced, accurate or fully informative arguments to the public. And likewise the public much of the time (most of the time?) appears to be incapable or uninterested in using critical thinking to examine the arguments and their own beliefs. But I don't see this story as being a particularly good example of that failing. The story is about the survey, and the results are pretty much one-sided. I don't know of any valid surveys showing contrary results, so the story is not going to be balanced in that manner.
It's a fairly light piece -- I guess that could be criticized, but then most newspaper articles are fairly short and thus incapable of providing a lot of data. How is this one particularly unbalanced?
Mr. Atherton made some good arguments to me in some e-mail exchanges we had regarding government intrustion into our lives and over-regulation. In principle, I agree with him on minimizing that kind of government control and power. On this issue, I think he should make it clear that those are (if so) his main concerns, as I think that's a valid position.
However, smoking is so insidious I'd rather trade more government control of smoking for less government control of some current aspect of our lives in which they intrude. It _is_ a slippery slope, and a smoking ban is on that slope, but the amount of persuasion, measured in years and money, spent by the tobacco industry needs some major opposition, and the government is the current best agent to effect that change. As I wrote to Mr. Atherton, I also think that such government intrusion (a smoking ban, or a smoking-only/non-smoking only licensing scheme, or what have you) into the marketplace should also be sunsetted in a generation's time -- say 30 to 50 years. That is, any such law written should specify that it will expire, period, after a long enough period of time to level the playing field.
Chris Johnson / Fulton
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