British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows

[Syt]

But so will be most publics, thanks to 24/7 media outrage against one thing or another and politicians looking to score cheap points.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-8697821.html

British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows

Research shows public opinion often deviates from facts on key social issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration

A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King's College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.

The research, carried out by Ipsos Mori from a phone survey of 1,015 people aged 16 to 75, lists ten misconceptions held by the British public. Among the biggest misconceptions are:

- Benefit fraud: the public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed. Official estimates are that just 70 pence in every £100 is fraudulent - so the public conception is out by a factor of 34.

- Immigration: some 31 per cent of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants, when the figure is actually 13 per cent. Even including illegal immigrants, the figure is only about 15 per cent. On the issue of ethnicity, black and Asian people are thought to make up 30 per cent of the population, when the figure is closer to 11 per cent.

-  Crime: some 58 per cent of people do not believe crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19 per cent lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53 per cent lower than in 1995. Some 51 per cent think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.

- Teen pregnancy is thought to be 25 times higher than the official estimates: 15 per cent of of girls under 16 are thought to become pregnant every year, when official figures say the amount is closer to 0.6 per cent.

Among the other surprising figures are that 26 per cent of people think foreign aid is in the top three items the Government spends money on (it actually makes up just 1.1 per cent of expenditure), and that 29 per cent of people think more is spent on Jobseekers' Allowance than pensions.

In fact we spend 15 times more on pensions - £4.9 billion on JSA vs £74.2 billion on pensions.

Hetan Shah, executive director of the Royal Statistical Society, said: "Our data poses real challenges for policymakers. How can you develop good policy when public perceptions can be so out of kilter with the evidence?

"We need to see three things happen. First, politicians need to be better at talking about the real state of affairs of the country, rather than spinning the numbers. Secondly, the media has to try and genuinely illuminate issues, rather than use statistics to sensationalise.

"And finally we need better teaching of statistical literacy in schools, so that people get more comfortable in understanding evidence."

Bobby Duffy, the managing director of Ipsos Mori Social Research Institute, said: "A lack of trust in government information is also very evident in other questions in the survey - so 'myth-busting' is likely to prove a challenge on many of these issues.  But it is still useful to understand where people get their facts most wrong."

[garbon]

"We need to see three things happen. First, politicians need to be better at talking about the real state of affairs of the country, rather than spinning the numbers. Secondly, the media has to try and genuinely illuminate issues, rather than use statistics to sensationalise.

[Gups]

The Grauniad ran this test, I got 8 out of 10.

The problem is that peole take anecdotal evidence (including form the press) much more seriously than actual evidence.

[mongers]

The Grauniad ran this test, I got 8 out of 10.

The problem is that peole take anecdotal evidence (including form the press) much more seriously than actual evidence.

It's in almost everyone's interest for this to be the case, saving of course the public themselves.   


Though it's not entirely wrong on everything, as crime statistics are apparently so massaged and politicised now as to only have a passing acquaintance with the facts.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The problem here is that the people who conducted the survey are also members of the British public 

[The Minsky Moment]

A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King's College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.

Only if you believe the Royal Statistical Society.  But what do the Windsors know about statistics anyways?

Benefit fraud: the public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed. Official estimates are that just 70 pence in every £100 is fraudulent - so the public conception is out by a factor of 34.

Those official estimates themselves are the product of fraud.  £24 of every £100 in salary paid to the officials making the estimates consist of bribes from benefit fraudsters.

Immigration: some 31 per cent of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants, when the figure is actually 13 per cent. Even including illegal immigrants, the figure is only about 15 per cent. 

Depends on what you mean by recent.  They are probably treating all those johnny-come-lately Normans, Jutes, and Angles as "natives."  What else could you expect from a report from those Krauts in the royal family.

Crime: some 58 per cent of people do not believe crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19 per cent lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53 per cent lower than in 1995. Some 51 per cent think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.

The incidents may be falling but crime itself is up.  Besides there is no way there is less crime in 2012 than 1995.  That would mean there was more crime in Batman Forever than in the Dark Knight Rises; Bane begs to differ.*

Teen pregnancy is thought to be 25 times higher than the official estimates: 15 per cent of of girls under 16 are thought to become pregnant every year, when official figures say the amount is closer to 0.6 per cent.

Hah.  It starts it 15 percent before they start taking the whore pills.

Among the other surprising figures are that 26 per cent of people think foreign aid is in the top three items the Government spends money on (it actually makes up just 1.1 per cent of expenditure

But most of the rest of the 98.9 percent goes to the foreigners in the country.  See point 2.


*Not taking into account the crime that Batman Forever was made in the first place.

[garbon]

[derspiess]

whore pills

Ah, my one & only lasting contribution to Languish.

YOU'RE WELCOME

[Richard Hakluyt]

I actually did a spot of research on the benefit fraud one, the 0.7% figure seemed unfeasibly low. The main problem here is that people do not perceive as benefits payments made to "worthy" recipients such as pensioners. Looking at those benefits that some components of the population disapprove of, such as job-seekers allowance or housing benefit, the official figures for fraud were around 5%..........I knew some benefits fraud officers during my time in the Civil Service, it was easy to see that estimates of fraud might be too low rather than otherwise.

[Josquius]

I read this is "Independant takes a swing at Daily Mail".

This doesn't surprise me at all. There's a quiz elsewhere on the site, I got 9/10. 

[HVC]

So Josq is a representative sample. Scary

[jimmy olsen]

So Josq is a representative sample. Scary

I'm afraid it's far worse than that, it seems that he's far more worldly than the average Brit!

[Ideologue]

Batman Forever was okay.