{"id":2526,"date":"2013-03-25T18:21:54","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T22:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/?p=2526"},"modified":"2013-03-25T18:25:22","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T22:25:22","slug":"public-polling-lies-and-consumer-fraud-will-skeptics-ever-speak-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/2013\/03\/25\/public-polling-lies-and-consumer-fraud-will-skeptics-ever-speak-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Public polling, lies and consumer fraud: Will skeptics ever speak out?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 554px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/files\/2013\/03\/supp1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"554\" height=\"359\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">If the data do not back you up, there is something wrong with the data.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>During the last election cycle, there was\u00a0a curious phenomenon that crept into public consciousness as polls showed President Obama ahead: &#8220;unskewing the polls&#8221;. The idea, embraced by (risking the wrath of <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/2013\/01\/23\/a-criticism-of-michael-shermer-and-the-scientific-american-political-left-is-not-at-war-with-science-unlike-political-right\/\">Michael Shermer<\/a>) right wing commentators, was that when the polls do not show what you would like them to show, you manipulate the numbers to get the results you want.\u00a0Idiotic and\u00a0bizarre as it\u00a0sounds, the idea, championed by conservative pundit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/conservative-in-arlington\/dean-chambers\">Dean Chambers<\/a>, gained <a href=\"http:\/\/2012.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2012\/09\/dean-chambers-unskewed-polls.php\">quite some traction <\/a>in the political Right. And when Mr. Chambers was proven wrong, well, he blamed everything, from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jeffbercovici\/2012\/11\/07\/nate-silvers-biggest-critic-blames-botched-prediction-romneys-loss-on-hurricane-sandy\/\">Hurricane Sandy <\/a>to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/weigel\/2012\/11\/20\/from_the_maker_of_unskewed_polling_comes_the_obama_voter_fraud_map.html\">voter fraud<\/a>\u00a0for the &#8220;unexpected&#8221; outcome, except, of course, his own faulty analysis of data.<\/p>\n<p>You would think that with this kind of a track record,\u00a0speaking of &#8220;skewed polls&#8221;\u00a0would become radioactive, something anyone with a bare minimum of self-respect would like the plague.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2013\/03\/25\/1196868\/-Bauer-on-surveys-showing-support-for-marriage-equality-The-polls-are-skewed\"> You would be wrong.<\/a>\u00a0Just ask evangelical activist <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gary_Bauer\">Gary Bauer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Right-wing evangelical operative Gary Bauer thinks it&#8217;s &#8220;ludicrous&#8221; to say the public &#8220;overwhelmingly&#8221; supports marriage equality, or at least that&#8217;s what he said this weekend on Fox News Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>As Chris Wallace pointed out, the latest ABC-<em>Washington Post<\/em> survey showed 58 percent of Americans support equality. Just 36 percent are bigots like Bauer. A decade ago, those numbers were reversed.<\/p>\n<p>So how did Bauer respond? &#8220;The polls are skewed, Chris.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bauer on marriage equality: &#039;The polls are skewed!&#039;\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZQSp7CxexSE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nNow here is what I want to know. The skeptical community are supposed to be consumer advocates, speaking out against fraud and deception. Are we ever going to have a James Randi or a Michael Shermer calling out Dean Chambers, Gary Bauer and others out on their lies? I am well aware that the Skeptic magazine or JREF would not want to look political. But are we going to allow political correctness get in the way of the truth?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the last election cycle, there was\u00a0a curious phenomenon that crept into public consciousness as polls showed President Obama ahead:&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}