Common sense and training in wildlife science, really? I had a professor who was really big on study integrity, preached it morning, noon, and night if you know what I mean.

60% of our grade one quarter was based on a quarter long survey or behavioral/observational study we had to do. Whatever your study was, you had to design it, set it up, tend it, collect and collate your data...basically the whole kit and caboodle. If there was a design flaw, you automatically failed, which meant, more than likely, you automatically failed the class.

So it behooved you to pay fucking attention to what soets of things are good design elements and where common points of failure might be. Agreed? Lot of guys in that class were on their 3rd or 4th attempt passing it. So there was a time in my life where pressure to get down and get it right was causing me no small amount of anxiety, you feel me?

One of my fellow students (different field, but we had some overlap) actually got into study design professionally. She's a recognized expert that scientists and survey/poll people go to (when they want and are willing to invest in a good one) to help them design proper studies and surveys. So after college, our friendship has kept all those lessons fresh and relevant in my mind from exchanging work related "war story purging bitchfests", as you do.

You learn a lot about a wide variety of things when you have a wide variety of friends from all walks of life. Plus, anytime something comes up beyind your ken, you have an expert source who can help you make heads and tails of it. And you can be/do the same for them. Yay altruism.

Of course, you don't HAVE to have a college degree or be an expert in study design to just realize that the math ain't mathing there. You just need a pair of decently working eyeballs and some common sense. You really don't need to know what, where, and how things went askance on that to realize that when "study results" are placed up against observed reality, something shows up rotten in Denmark, there's something squirrelly in what's being told to you, snd someone somewhere is peddling in some bullshit.

Remember, in science, if a theory doesn't fit observable facts then the theory is either wrong, incomplete, only occurs under certain circumstances, or has exclusionary characteristics (exceptions) that have not been properly accounted for in the study. In other words, it's a dud and it's back to the drawing board with you.

But you're right, I should do a full article taking that dumb ass study/poll to task for being stupid. Because it does not match observed reality AT ALL, and one would be forgiven for concluding that the only people fool enough to believe it in the first place are gonna be folks walking around with their own set of bias blinders on (the only see what they believe, rather than what's there) or folks who have been sequestered up in the attic or down in the basement and haven't seen the light of day or been out in public in forever. They've forgotten what actual public vs TV public looks like. Just saying.