British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows

[smurfy]

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

[url]http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3188/Perceptions-are-not-reality-the-top-10-we-get-wrong.aspx[/url]
[quote]1. [B]Teenage pregnancy[/B]: on average, we think teenage pregnancy is 25 times higher than official estimates: we think that 15% of girls under 16 get pregnant each year, when official figures suggest it is around 0.6%.

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

3. [B]Job-seekers allowance[/B]: 29% of people think we spend more on JSA than pensions, when in fact we spend 15 times more on pensions (£4.9bn vs £74.2bn).

4. [B]Benefit fraud[/B]: people estimate that 34 times more benefit money is claimed fraudulently than official estimates: the public think that £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently, compared with official estimates of £0.70 per £100.

5. [B]Foreign aid[/B]: 26% of people think foreign aid is one of the top 2-3 items government spends most money on, when it actually made up 1.1% of expenditure (£7.9bn) in the 2011/12 financial year. More people select this as a top item of expenditure than pensions (which cost nearly ten times as much, £74bn) and education in the UK (£51.5bn).

6. [B]Religion[/B]: we greatly overestimate the proportion of the population who are Muslims: on average we say 24%, compared with 5% in England and Wales. And we underestimate the proportion of Christians: we estimate 34% on average, compared with the actual proportion of 59% in England and Wales.

7. [B]Immigration and ethnicity[/B]: the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants, when the official figures are 13%. Even estimates that attempt to account for illegal immigration suggest a figure closer to 15%. There are similar misperceptions on ethnicity: the average estimate is that Black and Asian people make up 30% of the population, when it is actually 11% (or 14% if we include mixed and other non-white ethnic groups).

8. [B]Age[/B]: we think the population is much older than it actually is – the average estimate is that 36% of the population are 65+, when only 16% are.

9. [B]Benefit bill[/B]: people are most likely to think that capping benefits at £26,000 per household will save most money from a list provided (33% pick this option), over twice the level that select raising the pension age to 66 for both men and women or stopping child benefit when someone in the household earns £50k+. In fact, capping household benefits is estimated to save £290m, compared with £5bn for raising the pension age and £1.7bn for stopping child benefit for wealthier households.

10. [B]Voting[/B]: we underestimate the proportion of people who voted in the last general election – our average guess is 43%, when 65% actually did. [/quote]

[SeamanStains]

Imagine a world where much of the right wing weren't pants on head retarded reactionaries who believed everything printed in sensationalist tabloids. That would be something.

[theblah12]

[QUOTE=SeamanStains;41386943]Imagine a world where much of the right wing weren't pants on head retarded reactionaries who believed everything printed in sensationalist tabloids. That would be something.[/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/nrs-figures-say-sun-most-read-uk-newspaper-print-and-online[/url]

The Sun and the Daily Mail are the two most read newspapers in the whole UK, it's honestly amazing just how many people read that crap.

[Crimor]

What if the survey is wrong too.

[SeamanStains]

To be honest I'd go as far as saying news papers as a form of entertainment should be banned. Actual news should be scrutinised like an academic paper and opinion news like should come with warnings saying "this isn't real news, nothing in this paper has been varified for true factual content".

Imagine a world where we can debate from all angles as informed intellectual equals with our own opinions instead of tribal cavemen trying to win popularity contests with fairy tales agreed upon by media elites to polarise us into low-thinking quantitative data for political pigeonholing.

[Jund]

[quote]the average estimate is that 36% of the population are 65+, when only 16% are.[/quote]

How does anyone come to the conclusion that over a third of the population are over 65

[GoogleyGareth]

And it isn't even britain, it's mostly just england and wales.

[editline]10th July 2013[/editline]

[QUOTE=Jund;41387102]How does anyone come to the conclusion that over a third of the population is over 65[/QUOTE]

There are a lot of old looking people here, otherwise known as smokers.

[Xystus234]

I don't think it would be a good idea to let those statistics become a reality though.

[theblah12]

[QUOTE=SeamanStains;41387096]To be honest I'd go as far as saying news papers as a form of entertainment should be banned. Actual news should be scrutinised like an academic paper and opinion news like should come with warnings saying "this isn't real news, nothing in this paper has been varified for true factual content".[/QUOTE]

What I don't understand is why newspapers are completely unregulated in the first place -compared to TV news where there is quite a lot of regulation to try and combat bias and sensationalism.

In fact, I think the BBC should have it's own newspaper.

[MrEndangered]

[quote]the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants[/quote]

Let that sink in for a moment.

[kybalt]

[QUOTE=Jund;41387102]How does anyone come to the conclusion that over a third of the population are over 65[/QUOTE]

and yet 15% of teenage girls get pregnant each year.

[Jund]

[QUOTE=Kybalt;41387948]and yet 15% of teenage girls get pregnant each year.[/QUOTE]

What's the estimate on abortions

[Secrios]

As a British person myself this was no surprise.

[butre]

[QUOTE=Hogie bear;41387103]And it isn't even britain, it's mostly just england and wales.
[/QUOTE]

that's ok the scots are too drunk to answer

[Fr3ddi3]

Some of those answers do surprise me, but you gotta remember people are going to be basing their responses on where they live and what they have seen first hand. Of course the responses are gonna be biased.

For example, I constantly read about how crime is falling at an unprecedented rate where i live, but from my own experiences and what I see happening on a day to day basis to myself and people i know, i have to say I find that to be total bollocks, so if i was asked that question i'd say no crime isn't falling.

[Jaguar]

[QUOTE=SeamanStains;41386943]Imagine a world where much of the right wing weren't pants on head retarded reactionaries who believed everything printed in sensationalist tabloids. That would be something.[/QUOTE]

You're implying that the left wing doesn't do the same.

[BrainDeath]

the public believes that 24% of the population of this country needs to be fired into the sun, when in fact this figure is closer to 300%

[Generic Monk]

[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;41397818]You're implying that the left wing doesn't do the same.[/QUOTE]

pretty much, they don't.

or at least the retards are far less vocal on the left wing

[butre]

Yeah they're just as bad the only difference is that you are one of the reactionary idiots on the left wing so you simply don't notice that its exactly the same on your side of the fence

[Awesomecaek]

[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;41397818]You're implying that the left wing doesn't do the same.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, honestly, at least nowhere near that degree.

[Carnage2323]

Are they also wrong about Ћ weather?

[Thelurker1234]

to be fair, these people that were asked probably don't care about teenage pregnancy etc. and just spit out their guess when they are asked.

both wings are crazy as fuck.

[Conely]

[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;41397818]You're implying that the left wing doesn't do the same.[/QUOTE]

our country's right wing says that jobs are scarce due to immigrants, then attempt to cut benefits completely. i'm sorry, even if our country actually had a left wing presence to begin with, nobody else could do anything that implausibly stupid other than the right wing.

[SweetSwifter]

I don't find it that strange opinions are so wrong. I mean, with every passing day we get more ways of accessing information, willingly or not. When we read a story about teen-age pregnancy, or some crime occurring, we read the same story in more and more different places, leading to the belief that it's occurring more, while in reality it's just a single occurrence that gets reported more and more times.

[Provost]

Can you imagine how a similar survey would turn out in America?

Dear God.

[NoDachi]

[QUOTE=SweetSwifter;41399376]I don't find it that strange opinions are so wrong. I mean, with every passing day we get more ways of accessing information, willingly or not. When we read a story about teen-age pregnancy, or some crime occurring, we read the same story in more and more different places, leading to the belief that it's occurring more, while in reality it's just a single occurrence that gets reported more and more times.[/QUOTE]

yeah whats critical thinking or smth

[amorax]

[QUOTE=Fr3ddi3;41397397]Some of those answers do surprise me, but you gotta remember people are going to be basing their responses on where they live and what they have seen first hand. Of course the responses are gonna be biased.

For example, I constantly read about how crime is falling at an unprecedented rate where i live, but from my own experiences and what I see happening on a day to day basis to myself and people i know, i have to say I find that to be total bollocks, so if i was asked that question i'd say no crime isn't falling.[/QUOTE]

The difference here being the guys saying crime is falling actually have evidence to back up their claims whereas you have none beyond your and those of the people you communicate with on a daily basis biased opinions.

Speaking as a Brit I can safely say most of the people I've met complaining about crime in their neighbourhood wouldn't know what a serious crime was if it ran up to them, knifed them and made off with their wallet. Half of the time it's just bitching about young people being snarky or disrespectful because they're too childish to suck it up and handle the situation like a mature adult.

[Memobot]

I've got so many questions.
For starters, the teen pregnancy statistic. Sure 0.6% under 16, but how many at 16?
Where was the immigration survey done? If Dover or Tilbury, the estimates would probably be high.
None of the data there should be taken at face value at all.

[LordLoss]

Basically it's a pessimism extravaganza

[Trogdon]

[QUOTE=Psychokitten;41400115]Can you imagine how a similar survey would turn out in America?

Dear God.[/QUOTE]

public estimates 51% of all population is foreign, whites are the minority