On Adler, Polling and the Role of the Media in Democracy

This post concerns an interview that Adler did with Tim Wollstencroft concerning a poll regarding negotiating with the Taleban. This points out that polls can be used to sway public opinion. Selective wording influences your results. It is bad enough that statistics can be skewed to prove almost any point that you want to make.

What this brings into focus for me is that many of the polls are conducted at the behest of the media. The polls are conducted to influence opinion in the manner the media outlet desires and then the results are fed back to the public as confirmation of the media outlet's opinion.

This takes me on to the role of the media in a democracy. To me the role of the media in a democracy is to freely present ideas to the public. The public then will use its voice to decide upon these issues and speak by means of election. The problem is that polls are now part of the story. The release of poll numbers does not occur in a vacuum but rather is a source of justification.

I wish that the media would present the facts and offer opposing views and then allow me to make a decision. Instead, our state run broadcaster has a distinct flavor, just as most Fox News programs do. The issue of journalistic integrity was assumed and now I think the blogs provide the balance that the journalists used to provide. It is not possible to find a blog with diametric views on the same source, but one can go to various sources to get other perspectives for consideration.

Atheism, Superiority and Science

I am by no means a fan of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, I think that his mouth was quite often in gear before his mind was engaged (re: gay Teletubbies and September 11), but the criticism that has been leveled at him and by extension his family by Hitchens is disgusting. I can't help but think that this is what atheists are.

The arrogance and lack of acceptance of another's contrary views is an earmark of the atheistic movement today. Both Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have this "you are less because you believe something that cannot be true" attitude to any that have a religious belief. Their book titles, God is not Great and the God Delusion are both setting the tone for those who espouse any religious existence.

The thing that is interesting about both is that they are specifically attacking Judeo Chirstian beliefs, but I have yet to see them specifically attack Muslim / Islamic beliefs. Could it be that the Christian and Jewish acceptance that not everyone believes makes them more comfortable attacking those groups? Islamic belief is more stark in the response to unbelievers. I don't think that they would be comfortable hiding as Salman Rushdie needed. If I am wrong on that issue, then while their message is misplaced, my respect for them would increase slightly.

The leftist intellectual crowd holds with these two and buys into the science of climate change for the same flaw in logic. Science tells us what is observable within the parameters of perception. Science is still fallable or else there would be no errors in what scientists do.

What can science not do ... give unending life, create original life forms, explain fully the origin of the universe, allow for accurate weather forecasting for the next day, cure AIDS or cancer ... I think that the picture is getting clear. Scientific and religious theory are both subject to the same flaws - perception. One cannot will another to see the existence of God, and one cannot perceive everything in science ... right now it is neutrons, protons and electrons which comprise the building blocks of matter ... is that as small as it gets or is there more and we just cannot perceive it?