--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > shempmcgurk wrote: > > >In light of the fact that only 19 of 100 contacted had seen the > > >movie, do you think it was fair of the AP to lead with: "The > > >nation's top climate scientists are giving 'An Inconvenient Truth,' > > >Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy." ? > > I am not sure I yet understand what occurred. > > There are clearly more than 100 climate scientists in the US / world. > I have heard the figure 10,000 used. Though perhaps not explicitly > stated in the article, its strongly implied that these 100 scientists > contacted were a sample of the 10,000 (or so) qualified scientists. > Probably a reasonable sample size. Hopefully the list was drawn in a > random fashion. At a minumum, I presume no one has pointed to any > extreme biases in the sample. > > That 19 of the 100 in the sample responded is pretty typical. Most > research, marketing and political samples have high non-respondent > rates. Its an issue, but not an unsurmountable problem. Particllary if > the sample size was targeted at being larger than necessary, to > account for non-respondents.
The movie's only been out a few weeks. I wonder whether the 19 who did see it were predisposed to Gore's point of view. To give an extreme example: Star War fans are more likely to be the first to go see a new installment of the franchise. So perhaps the 19 are NOT as unbiased a sampling as we would like to have... > > Did all 19 that did respond support Gore's main points? If so, thats > phenomenal. To have 100% of a sample (respondents) supporting the same > view, indicates a high degree of concensus among the larger population > of 10,000 (or so). Very little divergence (low sigman, low standard > deviation from the population mean.) > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Something is new at Yahoo! Groups. Check out the enhanced email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/SISQkA/gOaOAA/yQLSAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
