Useless statistics of the day

From the Taipei Times:

In addition to men with military experience, according to a poll done by Chinese Culture University in June, more than 65 percent of male university students don’t want to go to war with China. Of those, 30.5 percent said they didn’t think Taiwan could survive a Chinese military invasion and 25.6 percent though they would be the “victims” of a war.

This is from an article talking about how unprepared & unwilling Taiwan is to go to war. It got me thinking:

  • Did 35% of the students really say “Yeah – I’d really love to go to war”?
  • It’s good to see that university education has paid off on those 69.5% who realise that Taiwan’s military is a tad outnumbered by China’s.
  • It’s also good to see that the students realise that being a foot soldier in a war could be a dangerous business.

Seriously – what does this survey tell us beyond the fact that most students would rather not get shot at?

2 thoughts on “Useless statistics of the day

  1. Wolf Reinhold

    Poll stories are always suspect. Who commissioned the poll? What were the exact questions and in what order? How the story is pitched is also relevant, as you have pointed out.
    They are, basically, of little or no value.

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