🚀 go-pugleaf

John Cooley (jcooley@world.std.com) writes:
|   I just saw on one of those news shows on night TV an interview by Jane Pauly
|   of Ann Landers.  Two of the stats that surprised me was that Ann Landers
|   said when she asked her readers if they could do it all over again:
|   
|            - Only 55% said they would have married their current spouse.
|   
|            - 70% said they wouldn't have had kids if they could do it again.
|   
|   (Ann Landers said she got 50,000 responses on these questions.)

This would be a classic case of a non-representative sample.  First,
the respondants all came from a subgroup of the group "all Americans":
they read a particular advice column.  (Not everyone reads a
newspaper; not every newspaper carries Ann Landers; not every reader
of those papers which do carry the column chooses to read it.)  And
second, the respondants selected themselves from this group.  Not
every reader responded, only those who chose to do so.

So the response of this self-selected sample tells us nothing about
what "all Americans" or "people in general" think.  It's a lousy way
to run a poll.

As for me?  There are many things i wish i could change in my life,
but i wouldn't change my mind about marrying Steinar, and i wouldn't
change my mind about having my son.

- Cindy Kandolf, certified language mechanic, mamma flodnak
 cindy@nvg.unit.no                      Trondheim, Norway
 My home page, with link to the Bilingual Families Web page:
        http://www.nvg.unit.no/~cindy/