A poll with two bad words in it

Those two wretched words are “faith” and “homeopathy”. Please go kill it. Kill it, then burn it, then piss on the ashes, then use the ashes to fertilize a field and grow a tall stand of grass, then burn that, and then use the field as a fecal lagoon where you toss the waste from raising pigs, which you turn into bacon, thereby salvaging something useful from it.

See? I can too be an optimistic dreamer.

Do you have faith in homeopathy?

Yes: it works 68%
No: it’s nonsense 26%
I’ve an open mind on it 5%

Wait, you’re trying to decide who’s the best atheist, and you’re doing it with an online poll?

I know. That’s crazy. But I have no choice. Go vote.

Readers’ Choice Award for Best Atheist Blog of 2010

Atheist Revolution
1%

Common Sense Atheism
7%

The Friendly Atheist
5%

Martin S. Pribble
52%

Pharyngula
32%

Readers’ Choice Award for Best Atheist to Follow on Twitter

Matt Dillahunty

1%

Monicks

84%

PZ Myers

6%

Religulous

5%

Rosa Rubicondior
2%

Poll to plumb the depths of human stupidity

I know, that’s a rather vague descriptor: that’s what so many polls do. This is a poll about the anti-vaccination movement, though, which is like creationism in that it’s hard to believe people can be quite that thick about something that has been so thoroughly demolished. But go ahead, smash it down a little bit more. Apparently, Paul Offit, who has written a couple of excellent books debunking the anti-vaxxer loons, is going to appear on the Colbert Report, which has annoyed the crackpots. They have mobilized their forces to defeat the evil poll…so we’ll send out a few people to help.

Will You Watch Offit on Colbert?

Yes – I agree with Offit’s perspective and look forward to watching him
17%


Yes – I disagree completely with Offit but plan to watch
38%

No, I wouldn’t watch Offit if he were the last man on Earth
42%


No – But I think he has some great things to say
1%

A poll on the Pope’s views on social networking

An old-as-stupid benighted leader of a medieval institution that thinks the last word in social engineering is the mistranslated words of ancient goatherders scrawled on vellum has come out and said that using your computer for social networking is OK, as long as you don’t do it too much and adopt a suitably Christian manner in your writing — which may explain all those gleeful letters I’ve been getting that inform me I’m going to burn in hell for all eternity.

The Pope doesn’t even use a computer, and apparently writes all his missives in longhand, with a quill, unless he’s still using a stylus and wax tablet. Letting this antique make recommendations about your computer use makes as much sense as asking a mob of celibates to dispense sex advice, and no one would be that crazy, would they? I don’t think the Pope has done much research. Someone needs to show him our social networking outlet, the Endless Thread here on Pharyngula, and let’s see how quickly he reverses his opinion.

Oh, well. We’ve got an internet poll to resolve all questions and determine the truth, a far more sensible approach.

Does the Pope’s blessing on social networks change your view of them?

Yes! I feel less guilty for all the time I spend on Facebook now. 3%
Yes. It will make me use the tools with some of his ideas in mind. 14%
No. The Pope doesn’t even know what Facebook is. 3%
No. I don’t care what the Vatican thinks. 59%
I’m not sure. 21%

Bonus! The Pope thinks that if Jesus were on Earth today, he’d be using Twitter. We’re in big trouble now: I think he just implied that Ashton Kucher is Jesus.

How about savaging this poll?

Dan Savage has called on his readers to respond to a poll. Here’s the description:

“A religious right-wing conservative State Senator is trying to make [death-with-dignity] illegal,” writes a reader. “A state senator, along with a couple of anti-choice religious-based organizations, are freeping (artificially inflating the #s by getting out-of-area votes) a poll on a newspaper site in Kalispell, with a plan to get a big headline that they won the poll. Normally I wouldn’t bother with such stuff. But Montana is the smallest of small town politics–and every little thing matters.”

Go here, Sloggers, vote “no.”

I’m always happy to give Dan Savage an assist. This is the poll in question:

Should State Lawmakers Vote to Ban Assisted Suicide?

Yes
40%
No
60%

I don’t usually tell you how to vote. I think you can figure it out.

A Wakefield poll

As all rational, well-informed people know, Andrew Wakefield has been thoroughly discredited: his poor study that claimed a link between vaccination and autism has not only been debunked, but Wakefield has been found to have committed fraud for personal profit, manipulating the data to get the results that professional litigators wanted him to get.

Wouldn’t you know it, Wakefield is fighting back…by trying to crash an internet poll. Doesn’t he know that the Jedi Masters of poll crashing are all either on the side of science (like me) or the side of chaos (4chan), and that he’s not going to get his way with that approach?

i-b783d76f60a2a26014e029346330ce46-wakefield.jpeg

What a silly question. I don’t think it was a figment of his imagination at all; I think he saw dollar signs being waved by lawyers and intentionally fudged his data to make them happy. I’d think better of him if he were a delusional incompetent, but instead, I now think he was a con artist who traded children’s lives for payola.

Here’s the poll in question. I trust you will act responsibly and destroy it savagely.

Is the vaccine-autism link debunked?

Yes 57.24%

No 42.76%

If you’re a masochist, you might enjoy reading the comments at that link. Wakefield’s True Believers™ are out in force there, making amazing paranoid accusations.

How much does woo pay, anyway?

Whoa. Naming rights to the arena for the Sacramento Kings has been bought up by a corporation — no surprise at all there — but guess who bought it?

The company that makes those cheesy and ridiculous Power Balance bracelets, those scraps of silicone with an imbedded hologram that they falsely tout as improving athletic performance. This is the same company that got slapped down by an Australian court…and they make $35 million a year defrauding the public.

We’re all in the wrong business.

There’s also a poll at the article:

Although the name change is tentative, Arco Arena is to be renamed after Power Balance bracelets. So it is possible that you’ll be going to watch the Kings at ‘Power Balance Arena’. What do you think?

I like it
11%
I’m indifferent
22%
I dislike it
67%

Hey, how can people dislike it? Maybe the company will give the home team free magic bracelets so that they’ll win all their games!

Poll on the Pope’s qualifications as a physicist

The Pope has announced that God was the cause behind the Big Bang, which is nice…but unfortunately, he hasn’t shown any data, nor has he published in any of the physics journals. Instead, we’re going to have to rely on a poll.

The pope says God was behind the Big Bang, which scientists believe created the universe. What do you think?

God created everything in seven days as the Bible says, no Big Bang necessary. 13.2%
There is no God and the Big Bang was probably responsible for all creation. 21.2%
I agree with the Pope. If there was a Big Bang, it was God’s work. 39.7%
No one really knows and likely never will. 25.9%

What? No “The Pope is making it all up” option?