More on those evolution polls

I don't know why I'm so fascinated by opinion polls and the defects and manipulation thereof. Anyway, having written a post on some seemingly disturbing polls about public opinions of evolution a while ago, I'd be remiss not to point you to this excellent Skeptical Inquirer article by Chris Mooney about these polls that segues into a more general explanation of how subtle details of the wording and method of a poll can affect the results, either on purpose or out of sheer cluelessness. He also says a little bit about how polling organizations make money from advocacy groups that are clearly trolling for preconceived results.

The biggest risk with these things is a sort of game of Telephone. Often when you see these surveys fully described in context, with the questions spelled out in full and the methods made clear, the results don't seem as remarkable as they do when the numbers get cited with vague descriptions in an op-ed by somebody else, let alone when that gets cited by some talking head on TV or turns into an e-mail outrage item.

By the way, my favorite passage in the article is near the bottom. In a discussion of results from a poll about biology education designed to be worded more favorably to evolution proponents funded by Intelligent Design advocates (sorry, misread that one):

Indeed, the most startling thing about the poll was the fact that a largish 20 percent minority of respondents actually seem to think that biology textbooks should contain factual errors. Who the hell are these people?

McIrvin's Law of Surveys: At least 20% of the respondents in any survey will give totally absurd responses.