Why does everyone believe the poll numbers?

I'd really like to know! When they do these polls political or not;they get about anywhere from 500 to say 8000 people. Then the media says--this is how the people in America feel about it. This is just common sence --there are about 240 million people in America! So why does everyone believe these polls??
Have you ever seen a poll where they told the number of people serveyed or pollstered? Don't let them fool you guys & gals! But they are so far.
Now if this were a medical study it would be totally different!
So if they ever do a Poll of say 2 million people -I really might tend to believe it! Thanks!!

 

why? would that be differnt........don't know how old you are, but in the TV world, we started out with the nielsen polls. A few thousand people were asked to write in a log, what they watched each night….those few would tell how good a show was, or not, and the few spoke for all of us…it still works today, if you ask 100 people or 100,000 the percentages will come close…..I’m sure there is a better way to say this, as in Math Speak, but, that’s not me…….wobbles

 

Hello mr.or ms. wobblesrart,
Thanks for replying. Obviously you don't get it either. Oh well.

 

The voices that are heard, are the ones people listen to.

That really sums it up.

 

mmm...now let's see if I'm figuring correctly here......

your objecting to the fact that a straw poll is not a fair reflection on what the masses think....too much of a generalisation perhaps.....

.....but if the quantity of those polled rises to 8%, you'll more readily accept the verdict even though 92% haven't had a say.....

...but on the other hand you fail to credit anyone in the states with a degree of savvy because "there are about 240 million people in America! So why does everyone believe these polls??"

....ah, now where was I....oh yeah, trying to define the meaning of generalisation........now let me see.........

 

I have brought this up a few times in conversation, every year in the uk "seems every week now lol" theres a show on TV the 100 greatest 'whatever' as voted for by You is the disclaimer,I have never voted or filled in one of these questionaires I musnt be deemed a good representation of our population 'or' I havnt bought the magazine or visited the site that is running the vote

As Halo said they get to decide who represents society.Just by manipulating the average age in a vote of the greatest musical artist for example you would get results from Elvis to the spice girls,or by by running the vote on a site a particular age group or portion of society frequent,in the case of postal votes I dont think any young people are gonna fill in the form and send it back,I think thats one example of why the old greats always end up at the top of these greatest polls

I also dont listen very much to these except to laugh,at the moment we live in a governed society,every so often in the UK theres a referendum and the people are asked about a decision the governement have to make,it would be impractical to do this with every decision not only economically but no one really knows whats going on in the world other than what celebrities are wearing, so in that respect with great resentment I will say that polititions can be usefull

They will only usually run a referendum when they know the public will support what the government want to do anyways

You should sart a poll soto Do you trust poll's hehe

Dam freakin smilies have stopped working again hehe :0 Old skool smilies lol

 

Polls are "reliable" only under certain specific conditions...
1. sufficient numbers are polled (usually a few hundred are enough)
2. the sampling is truly random (very rare.. usually it is a subset of people owning phones and answering them at a certain time of day) ... you'd really like to know how the people were selected.
3. the sample is representative of the larger population they claim to study (this is the hardest... usually requires multiple surveys to validate this... the "error" numbers reported really mean that if one did the survey again, the results would be within x% of this survey )
4. the questions are carefully worded to avoid biasing the answers toward some desired result (most polls do not share the exact questions used... this is how one poll can generate very different results from another, ostensibly on the same topic)

So, how likely is it to find a poll that is valid? Not very.