A Yes vote means better jobs for young people in Scotland

robmatic

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

On the contrary, I believe I do.
I would never claim that a small representative poll is an exact correlation to the wider population.

The word 'representative' should be a big clue to how polls work!

IveSeenTheLight

robmatic wrote: »

The word 'representative' should be a big clue to how polls work!

I totally agree, but what is happening is a "representative" poll is then being cited as fact.

I've simply referred that polls can be questioned, timed and located in such a way to influence the outcome.

Certainly in my experience, I have not seen 2 out of 3 people racist against English people.

As sss555s showed, a poll could lead to Scots being 100% racially abused in England if they have been referred to as "Jocks".

Opionion polls can have value, but you have to understand the set up and context of the poll. You also have to consider a margin of error.

Generali

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Your citing a selective poll of only 500 people and extrapolating that to the whole country.

I'm a great believer that poll's are just an extremely small opinion and is hugely variable depending on time and location that the poll was taken on.

As an example, If a poll was taken at White Heart Lane after Arsenal gubbed Tottenham 5-2 for the second time in a season in 2012 on the affection towards Arsenal, I'm sure the results would be pretty low.

I'm not going to argue statistical theory with you. Suffice to say that these are statistically valid samples and that so many pieces of research point to the same outcome mean that the conclusion is probably right.

If you feel that these results don't represent a huge social problem in Scotland, as zag seems to feel, then shame on you. I don't think that the results are up for debate though.

Generali

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

On the contrary, I believe I do.
I would never claim that a small representative poll is an exact correlation to the wider population.

Hence why I tried to show where and when the poll is taken can have a huge bearing. i.e. At White Hart Lane after Tottenham lose heavily to Arsenal.

Often polls are taken with this specific outcome in mind to create a newsworthy item.

Generali's ascertation that the people of Scotland are racist is ludicrous and offensive

I didn't say that the people of Scotland are racist. I said that Scotland has a big and demonstrable problem with Anglopobia, a very specific type of racism.

BillJones

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Your citing a selective poll of only 500 people and extrapolating that to the whole country.

Do you have any reason to believe that it is unrepresentative? 500 is not a bad number for an opinion oll, as long as the subjects were picked in a fair manner.

IveSeenTheLight

Generali wrote: »

I'm not going to argue statistical theory with you. Suffice to say that these are statistically valid samples and that so many pieces of research point to the same outcome mean that the conclusion is probably right.

If you feel that these results don't represent a huge social problem in Scotland, as zag seems to feel, then shame on you. I don't think that the results are up for debate though.

On a similar vein, we can show that opinion polls taken in England state: -

70% think there should be no more immigration
60% think that immigrants should have to speak English
67% think that priority should be given to British People

Could it therefore be defined that the English are Anti-non English?

I believe in taking a poll as what it is, defining that small percentile and not necessarily reflective of the whole nation.
The country is too diverse for such a small responce to be an accurate representation

On another poll related topic,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27872037

People across the UK appear willing to continue sharing institutions after Scottish independence, according to the annual British Social Attitudes survey.

The survey indicated almost 70% of people in England and Wales believe an independent Scotland should be allowed to share the pound.

Does this infer that the Westminster Government wishes to go against the wishes of the electorate?

IveSeenTheLight

BillJones wrote: »

Do you have any reason to believe that it is unrepresentative? 500 is not a bad number for an opinion oll, as long as the subjects were picked in a fair manner.

You make a key point at the end of your sentence.
this is why I cited the poll location, timing and question is prevalent.

Do we have this information to evaluate the reliability?

Generali

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

On a similar vein, we can show that opinion polls taken in England state: -

70% think there should be no more immigration
60% think that immigrants should have to speak English
67% think that priority should be given to British People

Could it therefore be defined that the English are Anti-non English?

I believe in taking a poll as what it is, defining that small percentile and not necessarily reflective of the whole nation.
The country is too diverse for such a small responce to be an accurate representation

On another poll related topic,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27872037


Does this infer that the Westminster Government wishes to go against the wishes of the electorate?

Nice try. To stick to what we were discussing, the Nationalists seem to be trying to do what Nationalists across the world do, stoke hatred of the 'oppressors' and turn that into popular support. My fear is that the legacy of this campaign will be an entrenchment of something that is already a serious problem.

noodle_doodle

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I totally agree, but what is happening is a "representative" poll is then being cited as fact.

I've simply referred that polls can be questioned, timed and located in such a way to influence the outcome.

Certainly in my experience, I have not seen 2 out of 3 people racist against English people.

As sss555s showed, a poll could lead to Scots being 100% racially abused in England if they have been referred to as "Jocks".

Opionion polls can have value, but you have to understand the set up and context of the poll. You also have to consider a margin of error.

Margin of error is generally 1 divided by the square root of the sample. So for most polls of 1,000 people it's about 3%, for 500 people it's 4-5%

Moving to the old firm tactic of "but youse are worser" doesn't help nullify the original point either, in fact you're flailing about quite a bit. Why not just say something like "yeh, you might have a point, but in an independent scotland hopefully that will disappear as our new found sense of nationhood means we won't/can't blame others etc etc" that the snp trot out?

.string.

Poll sizes apart, has anyone any doubt but that the SNP is making use of anti-English sentiment in their arguments, and in fact fostering such feelings as it furthers their cause?