Do you look at methodologies when you peruse a poll?
I do.
That’s why I don’t believe polls.
Oh, I don’t believe in polls at all. I do look at the “internals” of polls when I really care about them, but generally, I simply don’t care about them.
Some I give a fundamental chance of being “more” reliable, and some I give “no” chance of being reliable.
But I think ALL polls are a masturbatory process for those who commission them and for those who actually believe in them.
The root of it is, that people simply are not reliable or truthful, no matter the methodology. That isn’t saying they are dishonest-there are just so many thought processes and psychological processes that pipe into what they say, ranging from wanting to please the poll taker to refusing to even talk to poll takers (as I do) for any number of reasons, which further concentrates the invalidity of the poll taking process by skewing it right off the bat.
But they have a living to make, as do the people who commission them...and the people who actually believe them.
In my post, I used a number from a random poll I saw recently, though I often calculate these by the seat of my pants.
I often use the Rule of Thirds, because I believe it has validity in many applications as a rule of thumb. For example, in the American Revolutionary War, one third were Tories, one third were Patriots, and on third were people who simply didn’t care and didn’t want to be involved. It isn’t exact, but it serves as a semi-valid framework from which an opinion may be constructed.
In my example, I just used 37% because it was a real example. I could have used 33% to the same end! But I do believe that mechanism is much the same.