[piva00]

> Also why not say we surveyed 6000 people in our list instead and 30% of them have this view? That is more true than saying 30% of Americans have this view which is quite a big jump. There is ofcourse some lying going on here. What are they trying to achieve by lying here is my question.

Because their methodology is designed to work through sampling, and sampling can determine results with very high confidence (95-99%) from a quite small sample size of the overall population, they don't need to qualify further given Pew has a trustworthy methodology for sampling.

It's not a big jump, it's how sampling works. I really recommend you read about it, it might be very helpful to understand and stop thinking "they're lying!", they are not.

It's basic statistics, you are trying to argue against very established mathematics.