Critique by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

As a Cultural-Anthropologist I am sensitive to the claims made by pollsters about the results of their polling. Because the very fact that you claim that your poll represents anything but those whom you polled and how you polled them, is misleading and deceptive. In human affairs, reducing human behavior to numbers is not only problematic but inhuman, and it rarely tells you anything objective.

Polling, thus, is not a science, since unless you poll everyone in an objective way and everyone tells you what they really think, you cannot know with accuracy or certainty what everyone thinks. This should be obvious.

In recent weeks there has been a flurry of reports that Pope Francis is popular in Italy or that Pope Francis is not popular. Regardless of the results, what does “popular” mean specifically? And yes, it does not have a scientific nor a numerical definition, strictly speaking.

In the above poll, the most glaring problem was that it was conducted with three computer assisted methods. The very moment you attempt to gather data from human beings, who are asked to respond to a question or questions, and you claim to use “computer assisted” devices or methods, you are involved in an equivocation or in disinformation. Because, since computers are not programed by computers, but by humans, the algorithms they use to arrive at results or decisions are humanly per-determined. Also, if a human is asked a question by a computerized voice, the response is going to be very different than if asked by another human, just as, when you best friend asks you a question, your answer might differ wildly from how you would answer the same question by a local town bureaucrat or policeman.

The results of the poll are found in the article above. Click the image to read them.

Professionally speaking, those who conduct a poll should never meet with the person or persons about whom they polled for information. This is a gross violation of professional ethics and a conflict of interests, and can be understood: for if you know that you may get a meeting with an important person, then you will craft a poll to get such a meeting.

Another common problem with polling, when it regards questions of the Catholic Church, is who really are you asking? Are you asking Catholics who call themselves such, but do not believe, nor practice. Or those who believe and do not practice? Or those who practice and do not believe? Or those who are all three not only in their claim but in truth? However, there is exists no method to know which is which before you ask a question unless you violate the privacy of those questioned.

So often these polls merely arrive at asking persons who have no idea how to answer the questions asked. “What do you think about Pope Francis?” is a question which means many different things to many different people.  To the atheist, it is probably an annoying question, since it requires him to confront a religious reality. To the non-Catholic, it is probably a question about a famous person, about whom they pay little attention. To the dissident Catholic, its a welcome question to express their own views about religion. To the faithful Catholic, it may seem a question which is dangerous to ask or a moment to express their repressed feelings of dissatisfaction or elation. To a clergyman, it may seem a completely ecclesio-political question.

In the end, therefore, if you poll just 3000 persons from pre-selected demographic categories, as this poll claims to have done, and use computer assisted methods to gather data, then you have discovered nothing but what the 3000 who were polled wanted to tell you. And since, in Italy, the culture induces all Italians in all discussions to say what is most acceptable to the person asking the question, you will know nothing from the poll other than how many gave you the customary response, which in the case of the Pope, will be a polite one, informed by howsoever little news from the Masonic mainstream media outlets in Italy, they read.

And Viola! — Polls show that Pope Francis is loved by 3 out of 4 Italians!

A totally meaningless claim which is most likely also totally misleading, if not deceptive.

I won’t even raise the question of how one can be sure that computer assisted data collection collects the data it claims to collect, since all electronic systems can change and alter data on the fly.