From: "Hagrinas Mivali" 
Newsgroups: misc.consumers misc.consumers.house alt.home.repair sci.engr.heat-vent-ac
Subject: Re: Cool Me Down
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 18:50:03 -0700


"Don Ocean"  wrote in message
news:2qp7nvF11cofbU2@uni-berlin.de...
>
>
> Hagrinas Mivali wrote:
>
> > "Don Ocean"  wrote in message
> > news:2qnp4hF11i74oU2@uni-berlin.de...
> >
> >>>
> >>>I love nicks answers, I can't imagine what goes thru his mind when he
> >>>posts a page of figures to reach a point. But the question is valid: Do
> >>>those 21,000 people from around the world reflect nicks tastes?
> >>
> >>Ummmm? What about the other 6.5 Billion folks.. Don't they count?
> >>
> >
> >
> > If the study were done properly, they would reflect those 6.5 billion
folks
> > on average quite well.  What's relevant is whether the average is
relevant
> > to your area  or to a group of people who are used to air conditioning
to
> > the same extent as you, or whose climate is similar to yours, and a
bunch of
> > other factors.
>
> I guess that would be like the Gun control thing.. Only Poll those that
> don't like guns..  ;-p Perhaps you should ask Harry Truman about Polls..
>   ;-p

With gun control, you can conclude that whatever narrow set of information
is studied in the poll might be described in a certain way.  When you
conclude something bigger, that's when you are misusing the data.