mindmyp's_n_q's said:
nijinsky's fetlocks said:
Ok, I'll take this slowly, so hopefully you can keep up.
How many folk work where you do?
Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's at best a couple of hundred.
Who, according to you, are all against Scottish independence, because obviously you've asked them all.
So, and I'm going to use a big word here, so don't panic, you extrapolate that small sample group to reflect the wishes of the entire country.
There is a word for such absurdist simplicity - stupidity.
So I suggest you toodle off back upstairs and have a nice circular argument with the usual nodding dogs, because this was clearly a step to far for you.
It is not as daft as it sounds. As long as the work force was fairly representative as a whole (most larger workforces have this, everyone from the lowest income to the highest and all manner of personal views) Then having a small sample can be accurate. I agree that 200 might not be perfect but. If you have a sample size of say 1,000 (out of the total Scottish population) as long as they are "representative" of the whole group you want to asses then you should get an answer accurate to about 3%.
It is the reason some ecconomists would suggest that to get a great government, we would be all better off letting a group of 5,000 political experts of all opinions and views decide a general election, as opposed letting us all vote. On the basis that the average voter knows and understands about 1% of what a government is actually proposing to do when they give their manifestos.
I take your point, but employers in Scotland are legendary for, shall we say, a somewhat sectarian approach to employing staff.
What if someone worked in the admin department at Ibrox?
Or on the shipyards at Govan, if there are any left?
I'm guessing they would employ an overwhelming percentage of Protestants, therefore asking 200 of them would almost inevitably give a result slanted against an independent Scotland, just as any survey in a staunchly Catholic area may be in favour.
You don't really get this religious divide in any other part of Britain, and it means I tend to treat a sample group of 200 with a degree of suspicion.