Re: Poll for you to vote to save Brookhaven Lab

[Michael Mokrzycki <Michael_Mokrzycki@ap.org>]

Sandy, I'm not saying the vote reflects *only* the opinions of those who
have been lobbied. But judging simply by how many people have been
motivated to forward the "please vote" message to Radsafe, I suspect
lobbying has resulted in more than a few votes in this survey. I'd fully
expect the same is true on the "anti-nuke" side.

I note the number of "no" votes has increased sharply since the vote plea
first appeared on Radsafe. That's why I said the results might say
something about "pro-nuke" grassroots lobbying. The evidence is admittedly
circumstantial.

I think we agree that the results are representative only of those who
chose to vote, for whatever reason. Problem is, that's a universe so small
as to be meaningless, at least for an issue of general public interest
(such a survey might have some validity for a Web site's market research.)
Unfortunately, this limitation often doesn't stop people from misusing the
results to try to have an impact on decisionmaking.

Mike Mokrzycki, AP (my opinions only)





Sandy Perle <sandyfl@earthlink.net> on 09/10/98 10:59:57 AM

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 Subject: Re: Poll for you to vote to save Brookhaven Lab     
                                                              






Michael Mokrzycki said:

> However, the current results might say something about the
> ability of "pro-nukes" to mobilize online ...

Not necessarily. It just reflects the mood of those who log on. Your
assumption is that the poll only reflects the "opinions" of those who
have een motivated to log on and cast their vote, due to the "pro-
nuke" lobby (appears that you have included Radsafe in this). If
that is true, then the same can be said for any poll that is not done
in a scientific method, which requires complete randomness and
polls all segments of the populations. I do agree that the results of
any poll such as this is meaningless, from a statistical sense.
However, it does provide a count of those interested in casting their
opinion. The results should not be used to make decisions on a
topic though.




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