“Research”

When I was in college, one of my favorite text-book is called: ” How to lie with Statistics”.  Since then I learned to read information carefully and I despise anyone who tends to mislead people using illegitimate research information.

One day I received a call with an unknown caller, but I picked it up anyway. I heard a young woman’s voice saying: “Hello, I would like to have 20 seconds of you time.  I would like to ask you a question. Would you agree the government to lower the tax rate?”  I find the nature of the question ridiculous and I told the lady that I refused to answer the question and hung up. 

I was angry because I felt the name of RESEARCH has been abused.  Anyone who has some basic knowledge about research would find the question misleading.  It has dishonored the professional researchers who do legitimate studies.  Let’s think about what the question is really asking.  In the capitalism society, whom would not want to have a lower tax rate?  If you call 100 people, 99.9 people would probably say YES. I hung up the phone before I found out the nature of the call; however, if they are conducting a survey, this opening question is definitely misleading and will affect the accuracy of the study. And, if they were using it as an opening line of a conversation or a marketing promotion, I think the question is too stupid and I have already lost my interest to carry on a conversation.