There’s a famous story from the early days of public opinion polling and it goes like this: a telephone poll taken during the 1936 presidential election indicated Republican challenger Alf Landon would defeat Democratic incumbent Franklin Roosevelt by a wide margin. The poll was, of course, wrong and the story has been taught to journalism students ever since as an example of how bias can distort perceptions. The flaw in the poll was that it was telephone poll; at the height of the Great Depression, surveying only those people who had telephones was not an accurate way to get a fix on the mood of the country.
I was reminded of the 1936 Landon poll by the cover story in the current issue of Wired magazine. I’m sure you are all familiar with Wired magazine. The cover story is called “The Long Boom.” In it, the authors predict we are now riding the crest of a wave that will sweep us forward to a future of peace and prosperity, of environmental and economic health the world over. The article even comes with its own timeline, forecasting dates for such future blessed events such as “human life expectancy reaches 120 years,” “auto industries transition to alternative energies,” “reliable simultaneous language translation” and “first contact with scientists from planet Vulcan.” OK, I made that last one up.
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Virgins and Volcanos
The newspapers of late have been full of portentous events, from the artificial, such as the Pathfinder landing on Mars, to the natural – volcanoes in Mexico and on the island of Montserrat. Approximately half the citizens of Montserrat, in the Caribbean, have fled the island, which is a good idea – when you share an island with a volcano, you need to keep your options open. In Mexico, on the other hand, people living on the slopes of Popocatepetl have been reluctant to leave their homes, even though they are getting buried in ash. The last time they evacuated, their houses were looted while they were gone. So they stay, choosing to face natural disaster rather than risk the perfidy of the human heart.
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