From: Dr. Blake Nelson (bnelson301@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Jul 13 2003 - 21:18:52 EDT
FWIW, did anyone see this Dawkins' piece from last
month's Guardian?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,981412,00.html
He cites the figure the Skeptic published as 93% of
NAS members not being theistic. IIRC, this is a
statistically invalid number, because the survey of
American scientists was not designed to specifically
sample the subset who were NAS members and the Skeptic
basically pulled out only the respondents who were NAS
members to come up with the percentage. (IIRC an
article based on the 93% was rejected through peer
review, although not by the Skeptic.)
Now, given that Dawkins is supposed to be all for
banishing superstition, why does he choose to rely on
bad statistics in his anti-religious polemics? I
think I know the answer, but to paraphrase Dawkins,
isn't anyone who claims that 93% of NAS members are
not theistic based on a statistically invalid sample
either lying, insane or stupid? Which one of those
categories does Dawkins fit into?
Anyone know if someone wrote to the Guardian about the
misrepresentation of survey data (presuming my
recollection is not faulty) by Dawkins?
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