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Old 09-08-2008, 01:56 PM  
Drake
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 12,508
Quote:
Originally Posted by PR_Tom View Post
1022.. statistically insignificant as usual. But "worth it" for the newsdogs.

Hey, lets not forget, these are the same assholes who figured it was "fair" to pose the hypothetical question "should hillary quit" on march 15th.
If the 1022 is a random sample, then it has validity. If not, then it really doesn't say much.

"The method pollsters use to pick interviewees relies on the bedrock of mathematical reality: when the chance of selecting each person in the target population is known, then and only then do the results of the sample survey reflect the entire population. This is called a random sample or a probability sample. This is the reason that interviews with 1,000 American adults can accurately reflect the opinions of more than 210 million American adults." - http://www.ncpp.org/?q=node/4

It's a counter-intuitive statistical reality that a random sample of 1000 people will accurately reflect millions. I didn't know this either until I took a stats course, and I never would have guessed it on my own.
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