Yet another survey where large majorities fail at simple questions

[aerocontrols]

This time, mostly geography (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1516&ncid=1516&e=2&u=/afp/20040102/od_afp/lifestyle_britain_040102181601)-related pop culture questions.

At least this one isn't yet another "Americans are stupid" poll. These things are so rarely done in other countries. It's nice to see one every now and then...

I don't know why the article seems to claim that the results are representative of the population as a whole. The sample suffers from selection bias - it's made up of people who want to appear on a television quiz show.

MattJ

[Skeptic]

Why do I get the feeling this "poll" is a canard?

All the questions are, obviously deliberately, of the "what was the color of Napoleon's white horse" sort (e.g., "where is the musical 'Chicago' set?" "where are the French Alps?", etc.)

This certainly doesn't sound like a real geography poll; it sounds more like some kind of joke. It seems to me that the reason many people said they don't know the answer was that they feared these were 'trick' questions.

[Mel]

This sounds like that idiotic tv show on late nights.... they ask contestants to guess whether some 'airheads' (found in the street) will know the answer to a given question.

It's not quite as exciting as watching a test pattern. :s2: