$27 million anti-evolution museum to open soon
 

$27 million anti-evolution museum to open soon

Child abuse.

Edit:
The more I think about it, this is awesome for atheists, we should organize field-trips!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...E1411XH269.jpg

Yikes! that is scary stuff. People will go to no ends to turn fantasy into reality.

You want scary.
In seventeen states it is still illegal for an atheist to hold public office.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8am5YCqwUbg

Will it be open on Sunday?

Only for Jews and Muslims...but they're not allowed from Friday evening to Saturday evening.

Blimey.

They'd rather have a giffer queer than an atheist.
Who'da thunk it?

I don't believe the majority of that poll...sounds way too PC. I'm not above giving people credit where credit is due, but 92% would elect a Jew? 88% a woman? 72% a Mormon? Bullshit.

Come on, you know polls have little to no statistical validity.

Depends on the source...a lot of the bigger polls seem to be pretty solid from a scientific standard.

That one that UT posted looks so wrong though. But I don't think it's an issue with the mechanics of the poll...just the people polled.

It comes down to sample size and the Z. For example, a telephone poll of 400 people on the streets of San Francisco, Calif hardly can be extrapolated to "the people of the US would vote for..." The margin of error is the other thing that is important to note.

Telephone polls are some of the worst. All you did was sample people who have telephones.

The most amazing thing is often how small the sample size is. You hear it all the time on TV. "The number of Americans that would vote for X,Y, or Z is 45a%". Looking further you see the sample size was 846 people. Ok, please tell me how you extrapolate opinions of 846 people to 32 million people. It can't be done. The statistical validity hovers near zero.

Statistics, lies, and more statistics.

Polls are easily constructed through the pointed questions they ask to extract the information that the pollsters is after. Political polls and polls by special interest groups with very bland sounding names are some of the best at doing this. Did you ever get that telephone calll from some tighty-righty or lefty-loosey political organization? Listen carefully to the questions being asked. Often only yes or no answers with no clarification or middleground choice.

Polls.... spitoooie....:smashfrea

Remember these are all hypothetical candidates from their own party though... So say a woman Democrat ran against a white male Republican. This would indicate that 12% of Democrats would rather vote for the Republican, i.e. he would win with 62% of the vote.

I agree that if it was a phone interview the numbers will be skewed though, people don't like admitting their prejudices out loud.

Or how about this, the pollsters know what they want to find out in the end. Obviously one of the points here was to put it to the Atheists. So I conduct a poll Sunday morning in front of a Hispanic catholic church, a black southern Baptist church, and a synagogue. I will bet you the results would be very close to what you see above. You will never know from where and how the results were obtained. The pollster may just say, “hey we just stood on the street and asked people.” In the mean time the people who posted this little ditty actually were members of the religious right that wanted to send home a message or members of an anti-US group of people who want to show how religion dominates the political process in today’s election process. Who knows?

I don't think the numbers would quite mesh like that, but I understand what you are saying. Based on personal experience and some of what I've seen in my lifetime, it would seem that people would rather not vote at all rather than vote outside their party.

I would think that because telephones still offer anonymity, people would be more willing to express their views. But I know I'm suspicious of my phone calls...maybe a lot of other people are too. Though I don't think polls are as suspect as Mercenary does.

Ok pick a poll that has original data which we can inspect and we can pick it apart. The point here is that you rarely if ever can see how or where the data was gathered. I spend part of my job reading original source research. You have to know how to find the weaknesses before you accept the data. And the validity would increase as multiple researchers are able to replicate the data you gathered in exactly the same manner. You rarely have access to how polling data is gathered, therefore the research cannot be properly evaluated.

True - take the 2000 presidential election, for example.

Elections and Polls are not the same, sorry to burst your bubble on that one. :handball:

I have experience in both social and physical science research and am familiar with poll development. I understand what you are saying. While I don't think that polls get it right all the time, the major ones (Gallup, Zogby, etc.) seem to have taken great pains to be more transparent in their polling. For example...from this Gallup poll:

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,007 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 23-25, 2007. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

If you see more into it than I do, and would prefer raw data, that's all well and good. From what I'm seeing, this is a pretty solid poll...99% confidence would be nice, but 95% is usually a fair standard for statistical significance. And I don't have a reason to suspect that Gallup is trying to manipulate numbers for some sort of advantage or benefit.

Good stuff. The only thing that I wonder, and I don't know this, are not poll organizations hired by groups to study data? Is there no potential for bias? The greatest weakness is not only in the regularly small sample size, for example I would hardly say that 1000 people with telephones represent and extrapolation to "most people think...", but the weakness in buried in the questions and how they are constructed.

:rolleyes: Such as "4 out of 5 dentists recommend Crispy Toothpaste." They don't tell you they asked 10 dentists, none of whom had teeth.

See my teeth?:D

I don't know either...I would suspect so. The 5% should cover most bias, though they have the disclaimers. As far as extrapolation, I guess it would depend on how they figure out who they're going to call...I don't know how they're doing that.

Agreed. And then the press picks up a result and runs with it. And then it is exploited by one group or another.:worried:

I think that's just the nature of people though..."God is on our side." Who likes being wrong? If you can find the smallest shred of evidence to prop yourself up on, whoohoo!

I have never been asked my opinion for a poll :(
(apart from on here, where I consider myself a minority anyway)

Are telephone pollsters exempt from the Do-Not-Call lists? I think they are.

My wife will always stay on the line and do a poll, even if it takes like 20 minutes. I'll sometimes do one, if it's around an election and I want to skew poll results towards liberal, but normally I won't do them.

I've answered a few poll questions that seemed to veer into product promotion...

And there you have another source of a polls significant weakness. I say this because I have done the same thing.

I think I was called when I lived in Philly...I enjoyed doing it, and answered all the questions as truthfully as I could. The poll questions seemed sound...no leading that I could tell.

We were called 2 or 3 times for Gallup polls around the last election, and I get a call for a product survey every three months or so.

Political organizations and charities don't have to abide by the DoNotCall list (which we're on), and I'm pretty sure marketing surveys don't either since they're not directly trying to sell you their product.

I do quite a lot of polling in the approach to elections. One thing I have noticed is, that people are less unhappy at talking about their electoral preferences than they used to be (used to get a lot of people saying "It's a secret ballot!" and refusing to answer any questions) people seem more used to telephone polling generally over the last 10 years or so. In the last two years I have noticed a distinct difference in how likely people are to tell you they are voting for the BNP, often without a corresponding change in outcomes. So, where before very few people would admit to voting BNP unless they were hardcore neo-nazis, now quite average people will say they support the BNP. ........sorry....thread drift, my bad :P

:worried: That is so weird. Here I am secure in my multi-ethnic bubble, believing that Britain is a tolerant place. You know I have met people who want to abolish the welfare state, but I've never met a card carrying racist. Horrible to think they are out there and becoming more vocal :worried:

"These days you can't tell whose in cahoots 'cause now the KKK wears three-piece suits..."

Syc, that has a lot of resonance.

@ SG, Many of them wouldn't consider themselves racist; plenty of them aren't really racists. The BNP have done a fair to middling job of convincing people that they aren't really about race......they even tried to recruit a Sikh friend of mine. It's only when someone films them secretly at a rally Zeik Heiling about the place and talking about ridding the country of the 'ethnic cockroaches' who are polluting the white race that people are reminded who they really are.

They discuss some poll results in there where Americans state that ... plus give you some ideas about how people feel about us. Notice how Atheists are "represented" on her panel.

It is illegal for us to hold public office in over seventeen states.

The thing they don't tell you is that they only asked 30 people the questions and then made this broad sweeping conclusion about Americans:

"The most recent data shows that atheists are more distrusted and despised than any other minority and that an atheist is the least likely person that Americans would vote for in a presidential election. It's not just that atheists are hated, though, but also that atheists seem to represent everything about modernity which Americans dislike or fear."

I wonder if they were asking exchange students and just didn't know it?

Move to the UK.
We don't have any problem with atheists. Phew - something I can say positively about my country!

(Except that you'll probably find most of continental Europe just the same)

I love the UK, well except for your taxes.... and your food.:blush:

Taxes you're welcome to diss. But the food?! Whatwhat?

Have something to back this up and I'll discuss it with you.

Ok, well the Bakewell Pudding was good, we went to the original place where they made it, upstairs in a building built in the 1600's or something. Oh, and I liked the Toad-in-a-hole, had that in a bar on a Sunday in London near the Westminster. Other than that....:neutral:

& the seventeen states in which it is illegal for an atheist to hold public office?
How do you speculate that away?
Nice how you ignored the films as well.

Where did you go that the food was grim?

You're not telling me that as a tourist I couldn't eat some bloody awful American food...? Because I'm telling you as a tourist I have.

It doesn't have to be traditional food - good lord if you're talking historical we'd be back eating out of date meat and highly spiced stales cakes...

Next (if any) time you come to the UK I'll take you for a fantastic meal. I might not be able to treat you to it, but it will be reasonably priced and very good.

Dude, I just opened them. See my PM reply before you jump down my neck and think that I am just another asshole.:thepain:

Ok at the risk of continuing a hijack, we had some AWSOME curry. Hotest best damm food I had anywhere of that vein. Give me some time it will come to me slowly...

Different videos, but thanks for the heads-up.

I'd like to hear about the sample size and the polling methodologies used to draw such country-wide, sweeping conclusions.

*snort*

Personal conclusions by the newest resident asshole, not selling a bill of goods to the populace for others to accept. ;)

(point taken)

Those two women in the video are the most ignorant people that sadly represent what many Americans think about Atheists and the rest of the world. The white women (Hunter?) is discriminating against Muslims by saying the are destroying Europe with their values while ironically, I find Islam a lot more peaceful than Christianity.

They keep saying we are a Christian nation. Do you really want the US to be labeled a Christian nation? We destory, steal, cheat, decieve, take advantage of, corrupt, and keep about half the world in poverty. Is that Christian values?

We are not, and never have been a Christian nation.
It is a long standing lie.

How do we do that? Maybe we should just send them all of our money or move to their lands and they can move into our houses.:eyebrow:

Hey, I haven't yet called you an asshole. I haven't even been mean. And my "mean" can be withering, just ask anybody here. :rolleyes: I did notice that (the collective) you were quite active in my brief absence; terrific. And I did not and do not want to get into a pissing match with you. That's not why I'm here, and as much (not so much) as I speak "for the cellar", it's not why we're all here.

But, dayum, man. You're new here, y'know? You *just might* be all that and a bag of chips. But. You started off on the wrong foot. That might have been your good foot, but it's ... just not appropriate. Do you wear your crampons on the dance floor? It was kind of like that. And it's not even your dance floor (yet). You're so new. At least Flint has a year on you and I'm a pup compared to some of the methuselahs still posting.

And **all** we have to go on, really, are your posts. They were combative, not constructive. They were rude, not respectful. They were ignorant, not insightful. We responded to that. Maybe you are an asshole, maybe not. I reserve judgment; time and your posts will tell. If you stick around.

And if you do stick around, and I hope you do, you will learn that the cellar is the most stable, most genuine meritocracy you will ever be a part of. I guarantee it, or I will personally refund double your money back.

Me neither. Never saw it that way. Just responding to the questions (often leading, which I would not allow them to do) posed, mostly in the political and current events, which is where you will find me mostly. I was looking for exchange, not a full frontal liberal assualt just because my views are different. But an exchange is not what I got. So whatever. I will stick around.

Style point: You don't get to permit or deny the questions, leading or otherwise.

It's from a Public Enemy song from 1991...it was around the time that David Duke became well-known. A great line...and it applies to many extremist groups these days.

I have the freedom to answer what I desire and as I see fit. No one can control the questioner or the person answering.

Or we kept them in poverty by moving our companies over there, paying the citizens $0.50 and hour and allowing only the upper class to control the country. We rape them of their natural resources, their main source of income, and make sure our companies get the profits. We don't invest money into their economy to help it grow, we control it for our benefit, and our benefit only. Attempts by them to create a nationalist or socialist government results in US intervention to overthrow the newly elected leader and then followed by replacing him with a pro-western leader and sometimes even reinstating an oppressive monarch.

If we just stayed out of other countries affairs, don't try to control their economy, and invest to help their economies grow, I guarantee that we would be the most popular superpower this world has ever, and will ever, see.

Ok, I am with you. We keep them out of poverty by not moving there and not paying them $0.50 per hour. We pay them nothing. That will keep them out of poverty. Good idea.