In Class: Logos

After reading Chapter 4, I was very interested in the Surveys and Polls portion of the text. I was interested because it made me think about how a survey or a poll is normally hard evidence and can reflect a society or a whole group's opinion. But what if the poll is taken only in a certain part of the country or only taken by a certain ethnicity? What if the only people who took the poll were age 18-25? I believe that the results could be very misinterpreted. Many people would agree with me that a poll is hard evidence but it could be hard evidence that is very inaccurate. I believe that if you asked people age 18-25 in New York City what there political views were their views would be different than the political views of people age 45-55 living in rural east Texas. These two polls could be compared and could make a number of different arguments. The people who designed a political poll like this could say that 65% of people believe that Barack Obama will do a good job in Office but where are the people living? What are their political views? Who are they? I do believe that it is true that "Some of the most influential forms of statistics are those produced by surveys and polls" but they can also make an inaccurate argument in my opinion. I believe a poll or a survey can be a very valuable argument tool but could also be a persuasive technique.