| g911turbo said:
Well, if it makes you feel better, by nature these surveys are bullshit. Look at the source. 1012 random adults. 1012. 1012!!!!... out of 300,000,000+. In my humble opinion, too small a sample size to be relevant right off the bat. And just because someone voted for "God created in present form", doesn't mean they are denying science. They might not have listened well. They might not have "gave a shit" and felt pressured into saying yes to the survey and they cruised as fast as possible through it. Etc. Etc. Have you ever taken a phone survey? I think I have, once. Wanted to gouge my eyes out. So fuck this survey, and stop spazing out.
Survey Methods Results for this USA Today/Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 10-13, 2012, with a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points. Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday. Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design. 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. View methodology, full question results, and trend data. For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com. |
1012 is a pretty solid sample size. If you conduct the random sample correctly, you get pretty accurate results, hence, the margin of error of 4 percent.
