Saturday, June 1, 2013

A Peaceful Shifting of Opinion

I already told you about the Intelligence Squared debate (on PBS) on global warming in which the skeptics fully eviscerated the warmists. Well, that same show has also done a similarly formatted debate on Islam and the results of that one were pretty darn conclusive as well...........................................................................................The specific question which was up for debate stated that, "Islam is a religion of peace", and the participants this time were Zeba Khan and Maajid Nawaz on the yes side and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (the author of the chilling book, "Infidel") and Douglas Murray on the no side. And just like with the previous debate, the audience was polled before and after as to their opinion. In this case, the audience's beginning opinion was 41% - yes, 25% - no, and 34% undecided and, yes, by the ending of the debate, these numbers had shifted markedly to 36% - yes, 55% - no, and 9% - undecided....Wow, I guess that the testimony of somebody who has thoroughly experienced first hand this religion of peace was sufficient enough to move the needle here. It sure as hell moved my needle.

5 comments:

Jerry Critter said...

I wonder what the initial and final polls would have been if the question had been, "Is Islam a religion of war"?

Sometimes the question has a big bearing on the answer.

dmarks said...

She was in my area a few months ago; it was sold out.

Jerry: Do you see a reason why the percentages wouldn't be perfectly reversed if the question were changed thusly?

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

She's married to British historian and economist, Niall Ferguson, another interesting individual.

Jerry Critter said...

Yes. It has been shown that how the question is asked influences the answer.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I don't think that there's any question about that, Jerry. But on this one you're more or less simply inverting the question. I suspect that the percentages would be quite similar (upside down of course).