We are all equal again, right?

[Dill]

(07-01-2023, 07:56 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Yes, I saw their wiki link and others, tell me with your own words why they should be a trusted source of information when it comes to sensitive matters.  Who are their sponsors?

In my words, I think we have to be careful with the word "trusted" here. 

Sources should never be trusted blindly. 

Lucidus is referring to a think tank, PRRI, which presents its self as non-profit and non-partisan. 
The claim is that it just gathers data and does research, and makes that available to the public.
It is "sponsored" by the Harvard Divinity school library, a part of the world's foremost research university.
And partnered with other thinktanks, like the Brookings Institution and the Transparency Initiative of the
American Association of Public Opinion research. That means (to me) they are heavily focused on
producing reliable data. They stop doing that and they lose these affiliates.

That's a lot of "checks" on what they do.

A good start, but then you still have to actually look at some of their research to see what's going on. 
E.g., they explain how their public opinion data is acquired and vetted. 

It is not produced because they got a call from the White House or the DNC wanting an opinion poll
on a recent SCOTUS ruling. It is "neutral" information organized into databases which the public
can use--meaning you, me, Lucidas, Biden's WH, or some NGO working with the state gov. in 
Texas or Florida. Their knowledge experts look at current dynamics in U.S. society and determine
what sort of knowledge vacuum needs to be filled. The data they produce will then serve
researchers for generations to come.

Even so, any time I used data from this organization I would satisfy myself, to the best of my 
ability, that they followed their stated methodology in gathering it. 


The opposite of a site like this would be something like Alex Jones Infowars, which amplifies conspiracies
and rumors, or generates them--e.g. unvetted photographic "proof" that a government swat team killed
the schoolchildren at Sandy Hook and the grieving parents are "crisis actors." 

The Jones site has the larger audience by far. If numbers were the test, it would be more trustworthy.