Aghh, the great god of "experts say", "polls suggest", and "computer simulations state"...
As I stated before, if such information could be predicted they could use it for more useful thing, like extending and saving lives, preparing a child to deal with tendencies of hostility and what not, and so on. Assuming there was such a science that could gauge one's tastes, habits, and the like, which manifest as we grow and interact with our environment through the 5 senses, and thus interpret the world as such, unless we've some how grown up devoid of any external conditioning or at the very least, minimal, which is near impossible in this media age, and thus making it near impossible to conduct such a study, as the purity needed in conditions would be boarder line illegal if not illegal by today's standards, and certainly would not please the humanists.
This brings to mind another aspect of all of this business, and that is the technologies (and their histories) of polls, and statistics, and how they have been applied, especially through out the 20th century and beyond.
Unless one was well on this origin story in the 19th century on into the early 20th century, one might find it ludicrous to suggest that the modern humanist movement has a common history of the theory of black inferiority and of black extermination. Perhaps you have heard of Eugenics? Perhaps you have heard of Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton? Or how about his friend who first developed the idea of an "IQ" test; Lewis Terman?
How about the fact that everything we know about one another is generally reduced to mere yes or no questions?
Mr. Neil Postman can probably explain this better than I...
Typically, pollsters ask questions that will elicit yes or no answers. Is it necessary to point out that such answers do not give a robust meaning to the phrase “public opinion”? Were you, for example, to answer “No” to the question “Do you think the drug problem can be reduced by government programs?” one would hardly know much of interest or value about your opinion. But allowing you to speak or write at length on the matter would, of course, rule out using statistics. The point is that the use of statistics in polling changes the meaning of “public opinion” as dramatically as television changes the meaning of “political debate.” In the American Technopoly, public opinion is a yes or no answer to an unexamined question.
"Generally, polling ignores what people know about the subjects they are queried on. In a culture that is not obsessed with measuring and ranking things, this omission would probably be regarded as bizarre. But let us imagine what we would think of opinion polls if the questions came in pairs, indicating what people “believe” and what they “know” about the subject. If I may make up some figures, let us suppose we read the following: “The latest poll indicates that 72 percent of the American public believes we should withdraw economic aid from Nicaragua. Of those who expressed this opinion, 28 percent thought Nicaragua was in central Asia, 18 percent thought it was an island near New Zealand, and 27.4 percent believed that ‘Africans should help themselves,’ obviously confusing Nicaragua with Nigeria. Moreover, of those polled, 61.8 percent did not know that we give economic aid to Nicaragua, and 23 percent did not know what ‘economic aid’ means.” Were pollsters inclined to provide such information, the prestige and power of polling would be considerably reduced. Perhaps even congressmen, confronted by massive ignorance, would invest their own understandings with greater trust."
- Neil Postman ( Technopoly 1992)
He goes on elsewhere in his book to note this observation:
I have been in the presence of a group of United States congressmen who were gathered to discuss, over a period of two days, what might be done to make the future of America more survivable and, if possible, more humane. Ten consultants were called upon to offer perspectives and advice. Eight of them were pollsters. They spoke of the “trends” their polling uncovered; for example, that people were no longer interested in the women’s movement, did not regard environmental issues as of paramount importance, did not think the “drug problem” was getting worse, and so on. It was apparent, at once, that these polling results would become the basis of how the congressmen thought the future should be managed. The ideas the congressmen had (all men, by the way) receded to the background. Their own perceptions, instincts, insights, and experience paled into irrelevance. Confronted by “social scientists,” they were inclined to do what the “trends” suggested would satisfy the populace.
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Psionic Roshambo:
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K3Nv2:
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BigOnYa:
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BakerMan:
