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So it's okay to post a thread using a heavily flawed poll to prove just how stupid Americans at large are. But to highlight the fallacy of it and attempt to demonstrate the syllogism that the poll in question actually is... this cannot be tolerated?
Sorry I forgot the party line.... Americans are dumb. That better?
Actually, I apologize. I haven't PM'd the moderator in question, and that's unfair of me.
From my PM reply:
if the poll is flawed, please point out these flaws - and I agree with you that at least in the article there are some very odd statements like
Quote:
that certainly are less than scientific (unfortunately the original article in the Science Magazine seems to be only available to subscribers).Quote:
Originally Posted by article
We continuously have threads that cast a not so nice light on Americans and also Europeans (or Christians or Muslims - just pick one).
Nice?
Certainly not, but if such threads do not blatantly violate forum rules (i.e. the thread starter clearly insults other groups or clearly just makes things up), the best way to counter misleading information is to debunk it and to clearly point out flaws in the arguments/methodology.
I cannot except new threads that are not meant for discussion but only to mock other threads - such threads have the ugly side-effect to encourage other patrons to start similar threads - I have little doubt that the next reaction to your thread would have been a "65% of all Americans would condone eating babies"-satire thread, followed by the "50% of Europeans condone pedophelia thread"-satire (oh ... wait ... we already had that one, and it wasn't meant as satire).
I hope you understand why I closed your thread and that it was not based on any agenda to make Americans look "silly".
I would argue that the aim of the thread (to show Americans as stupid) is just incredibly shallow. Simply not accepting evolutionary theory does not in any way take away from a person's intellectual capacity, critical thinking skills, reasoning ability, etc...
I really don't pay too much attention to people using polls to make generalizations. There have been even more offensive conclusions drawn from poll results (be they statistically sound or not) in the past (Canadians and pedophilia for example).