Fiddling figures

Re: “Watch-scandal polling shenanigans sully decent debate”, ( Opinion, Feb 15).

It is probably healthy that people vent by voting on online polls, but as Paritta Wangkiat explains, the results either way are not to be taken too seriously.

Unfortunately, people often lie in surveys, a fact known since the 1950s when the residents of Denver reported to surveyors that they had a library card, gave to charity and voted, in percentages that greatly exceeded the actual statistics for each of those socially desirable traits.

Similarly, recent surveys in the US show that 40% of engineers think themselves in the top 5%, that 90% of university professors are sure they do above average work, and that 25% of high school students place themselves in the top 1% at getting along with others. And 2+2=5. For a survey to get honest answers, it needs to be both anonymous and private. At least the online surveys are getting honest answers from their unrepresentative groups of biased voters, and that honesty is worth something.

The one poll that had some, albeit limited, credibility was suppressed because the results were likely to prove inconvenient, since they would likely have suggested that 85% of the nation or even more think that the Deputy PM general should already have made his farewells. Meanwhile, the poll that really would show what the Thai people think is being persistently delayed by the greedy politicians clinging to power as time tick-tocks away under the baleful eyes of the Big Brother watchmen.

FELIX QUI