A Gallup poll that was released on July 9, 1999, included a series of questions about possible religious activities in public schools. The poll was based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected sample of 1016 U.S. adults conducted June 25-27, 1999.
The questions, asked in random order, included the following:
• Do you favor or oppose teaching creationism ALONG WITH evolution in public schools? Favor-68%, Oppose-29%, No opinion-3%.
• Do you favor or oppose teaching creationism INSTEAD OF evolution in public schools? Favor-40%, Oppose-55%, No opinion-5%.
a. What is the margin of error for this poll?
b. Write a news story of a few sentences describing the results of the survey, being truthful but biasing the story in favor of teaching creationism.
c. Repeat part (b), but bias the story in favor of not teaching creationism.
d. Repeat part (b), but write an unbiased story.
e. Explain which of the pitfalls in Section 5.6 is illustrated by this example.