Dilbert versus African Americans .. the raw data.

[Pete Ross Junior]

The Poll That Did in [iDilbert Creator Scott Adams Is Even Dumber Than You Can Imagine] (Slate)

Click for whole thing, but here's the relevant item ...

...

Rasmussen said 13 percent of poll respondents were Black, so about 130 people. If we take the results entirely at face value—which I’d discourage—that means it found about 34 Black people who answered “disagree” or “strongly disagree” with the statement “It’s OK to be white.”

...

Thirty four.

Well so much for Dilbert.
Full disclosure: In my opinion the strip ran out of good material about 30 years ago.

But the real moral of the story is be skeptical of polls, especially when they tell you what you already "know".
This is good advice for everyone, not just racists.

[MichMan]

1. What is the issue with the polling sampling ?

Black population in the US isn't too far removed from 13%, so it would seem to represent the demographics of the country. Most likely a random telephone poll, so pretty difficult to get it much closer than that. For any poll, you don't want to over sample or under sample a particular group, or that leads to questions about validity & accuracy.

One could have issues with the questions of course, Adams, or Rasmussen for other reasons, but that is a completely different argument.

[bluesbassman]

2. It's the inherent risk with drawing macro conclusions from polls.

Especially on matters as potentially decisive as this loaded question. Scott Adams chose to hang his hat on the answer 34 people gave to disparage an entire populace of 43,000,000 people. Granting that those 34 people did answer the way the poll claims, it’s still a flimsy number to trash your career on.

[okaawhatever]

4. Also that phrase is used by white supremacists, so many may have been responding to that. nt

[MichMan]

5. One is always free to dismiss polling as being fake science

They are what they are. A snapshot of time for a given subset of the population asked a specific question. What the general public concludes from them is up to them.

My experience over the years has shown me that most people generally trust polls when they validate what they already believe.When they don't, however, all bets are off.

We see it here all the time. We boast about polls that support our positions and show disdain for those that don't.

[lapfog_1]

8. The poll was crap

because it used a white nationalist slogan word for word... and 34 African Americans (surprised it wasn't more) recognized it as such and reacted as we all should to THE SLOGAN and not the concept.

This isn't about polling accuracy or believing or not believing your poll data because of your predisposed position.

If the poll had asked the question a different way and not used a known white supremacist slogan... the results might have been very different.

By asking the question in this manner, they got the response they were looking for and then could publish the "results" attempting to make white people that aren't familiar with the slogan to somehow feel "geez, a large number of black people are racist toward whites"

[bluesbassman]

9. Personally I don't put much stock in ANY poll.

Way back they seemed to have some usefulness, but the past six years have shown them to be pretty unreliable. I stand by my opinion that Adams used an incredibly small number of responses relative to the greater population to demographic disparage that population demographic.

[FakeNoose]

3. I don't feel one bit sorry for Scott Adams, he has deserved this for way too long

Let him rant all he wants on his stupid podcast. And let him realize that his evil racism (and ChumpHumping) will poison everything he does from now on.

[Iggo]

6. What kind of a stupid poll asks a stupid question like that?

The answer is Yes, but if you’re going to ask me like that, I’m going to say No just to piss you off. And two seconds worth of thinking will tell you that’s going to happen. So either they’re stupid, or that’s what they wanted to happen.

And so again, as I’ve been saying for years, the answer to “Why the fuck…?” is that they’re either idiots or assholes.

[Silent3]

7. In this case, it's the author of the article demonstrating some stupidity

The author rightly calls out Rasmussen for questionable methodology and a history of generating outlier results. Those are valid complaints.

But pointing out that a particular result came from "about 34 Black people" is not the smoking gun the author acts like it is. There is nothing inherently wrong about considering data from a sample result of that magnitude to be useful, or (with appropriate error bars) likely to be roughly indicative of general public sentiment.