Your skepticism of a survey is well-grounded. In general they are unreliable. Not the least is that the surveyed often tell the poll-taker what they think he wants to hear. There is a reason that scientists prefer objective measures. As a trivial example, if you were able to survey every arrested person on a given Saturday night in a big…
Your skepticism of a survey is well-grounded. In general they are unreliable. Not the least is that the surveyed often tell the poll-taker what they think he wants to hear. There is a reason that scientists prefer objective measures. As a trivial example, if you were able to survey every arrested person on a given Saturday night in a big city as to what drugs were in his system, and then compare these answers to blood or urine tests, I suspect you would find a slight discrepancy to say the least 🤡. Surveys may have some utility, perhaps to survey opinion, but nothing beats impartial measurements of the real world.
The "real world," even if it is the ultimate in objectivity, is not much less enigmatic than the social human - nothing can be measured without being changed. Only in chemistry and nuclear physics are extrapolation from experiment truly possible.
Your skepticism of a survey is well-grounded. In general they are unreliable. Not the least is that the surveyed often tell the poll-taker what they think he wants to hear. There is a reason that scientists prefer objective measures. As a trivial example, if you were able to survey every arrested person on a given Saturday night in a big city as to what drugs were in his system, and then compare these answers to blood or urine tests, I suspect you would find a slight discrepancy to say the least 🤡. Surveys may have some utility, perhaps to survey opinion, but nothing beats impartial measurements of the real world.
The "real world," even if it is the ultimate in objectivity, is not much less enigmatic than the social human - nothing can be measured without being changed. Only in chemistry and nuclear physics are extrapolation from experiment truly possible.