Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
Suppose a survey asked: Do you prefer to read mysteries or science fiction? If I don't read science fiction--which I don't--should I be disqualified from answering the question? By choosing not to read science fiction, I've expressed a preference. It's a perfectly valid preference.
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But this is exactly the point, and why the methodology does appear flawed. If you don't read SF, but do read mysteries, and claim a preference for mysteries, that's valid. If you don't read either, but claim you prefer mysteries, then you're skewing the results. If the pollsters then include all of the people who say they prefer mysteries, regardless of whether they have ever read anything in either genre, then
they are deliberately skewing the results.
In this case, they've asked when you last bought a book, but there's no indication how that was factored into their conclusion.