Monthly Archives: February 2016

US Continuously at War

Posted on February 23, 2016 by George Beam

Updated April 9, 2022 The US has been continuously at war since the 1940s, sometimes via proxies, sometimes covertly, and sometimes, most obviously, the US kills, maims, bombs, burns, shoots, defoliates forests, destroys cities, and much more, by using its … Continue reading →

Posted in us foreign policy | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Nonrandom Samples and Bribes in Survey Research

Posted on February 19, 2016 by George Beam

Updated November 22, 2020 Only research based on random samples provides the best possibility for obtaining reliable results.  Survey researchers/askers often can’t obtain random samples.  Rather than using a non-asking procedure–such as observation, experiments, or predictive models–to study the population they are investigating, they … Continue reading →

Posted in Survey Research | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Interviewers Skew Answers

Posted on February 10, 2016 by George Beam

Interviewers/askers skew answers because their personal characteristics (e.g., ethnicity, gender), manner of speaking, types of questions asked and not asked, and so on, affect interviewees’ responses.  Here’s Jonah Goldberg’s comment about how interviewer Brianna Keilar affected Hillary Clinton’s answers about her emails: “After … Continue reading →

Posted in Survey Research | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Review: D. Paul Sullins, Keeping the Vow: The Untold Story of Married Priests

Posted on February 8, 2016 by George Beam

As part of my efforts efforts to reduce confidence in survey research (any instrument or procedure that asks questions, which may, or may not, be answered) I post critiques of books based on survey research on Amazon, my blog, and Facebook. Here’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Survey Research | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Interviews Not Trustworthy and Triply Subjective

Posted on February 5, 2016 by George Beam

Interviews are not trustworthy and triply subjective.  Two articles in the Feb. 11, 2016, issue of the New York Review of Books make these related points.  Janet Malcolm, in her review of a biography of Ted Hughes,  refers to interviews … Continue reading →

Posted in Survey Research | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Survey Research Norm: Acknowledge and Use Flawed Results

Posted on February 4, 2016 by George Beam

The norm in survey research is that any results are acceptable for academic and/or popular publication and/or broadcast as long as the survey researcher/asker or the user of survey research results describes the research design, method(s) of collecting answers, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Survey Research | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment