Internet and Opinion Polls - Assignment Example

The opinion poll is generally conducted as an attempt to measure and depict some broader conclusions about its audience. The poll I found online is a representation of 1000 US citizens. I dare to think that 1000 people can be representative of the overall US population which is around 813 million. After careful research, I understand that collecting 1000 opinions is the standard for any poll which I found. I don't think a sample of 1000 people can be representative to form a general opinion on an important matter. And I do believe that very often polls are biased in terms of how the question is asked and what answers the interviewees have to choose from. The limited answer options in the poll may influence how people project their opinion and may produce biased results.

2. According to the textbook, a hypothesis is “a causal explanation offered for further investigation or testing.” The book provides several methods for testing the quality of a hypothesis. Choose one of the statements below and use one or more of the tests provided in the textbook to evaluate the quality of the hypothesis. Identify the hypothesis in the statement, and then say why it is or is not a good one.

1. Objects were flying everywhere in that room. Either an earthquake or ghosts could have made those objects move. Since there was no earthquake reported, it must have been ghosted.

1. Crop circles are complicated, symmetrical designs formed in grain fields through depressing grain stalks. Because of their complexity and symmetry, they cannot be natural phenomena. These crop circles appear overnight. Since it would take far too long and too much complex planning for one or two people to make these designs, which can be seen only from above, aliens from outer space must be making them.

1. The other day, I was walking in the mall and suddenly remembered an old school friend whom I had not spoken to in years. Not five minutes later, there I was face to face with my old friend. There must have been some deep karmic connection that drew us together that day.

The hypothesis here is the statement that 2 people must have a karmic connection to meet after years of not seeing each other. One of the experiments to prove or disprove a hypothesis is for us to test it. It will be very difficult to test the above hypothesis. The karmic connection may or may not be true. It is not testable by its very nature. To form a good hypothesis one needs to make “an educated guess”, and not just produce a statement out of thin air. We can not make observations and draw scientific data to explain whether this hypothesis is correct. This is a pool statement and may be considered a speculation rather than a hypothesis.

1. Studies show that families who regularly eat their meals together have children who perform better than average at school. Communal family meals are essential to student success.

Critical Thinking

11th Edition

by Brooke Noel Moore and Richard Parker

© 2015, McGraw-Hill Higher Education

Chapters 7 and 11