Public opinion polls often make news, but they don't necessarily improve discourse or policy decisions.  This is true in business and politics, at least where the polls are created primarily for news purposes. Not all polls are bad, of course, and groups like Pew and some others can offer useful starting points for policy discussions. Still we should be skeptical of public opinion polls. 

A new poll released today provides a good example of how unhelpful polls can be. Robert Morris University (RMU) today issued a press release (about a new poll) that says Pennsylvanians "expressed both overwhelming support and strong environmental misgivings, about" hydraulic fracturing (fracking). This framing of the poll does not seem to reveal any inherent inconsistencies. It would be entirely reasonable for people to recognize the potential value fracking for oil and gas can have, while at the same time being worried about the environmental risks that come with fracking (or any other industrial process).  

In fact, I have argued that this is the proper way to consider risks and benefits to help ensure oil and gas operations are as environmentally sound as possible to ensure sustainable development. Unfortunately, the poll indicates some internal inconsistencies among those polled that suggest people don't really understand either: (1) the questions or (2) how the world works.   Here are some of the results of the poll: 

• Support fracking: 57.1% (PA) & 56% (U.S.)
• Think fracking will help the U.S. economy: 74.2% (PA) & 73% (U.S.)
• Say fracking will move U.S. toward Energy Independence: 69.9% (PA)

These numbers suggest reasonable-to-strong support for the drilling process. Okay so far, but here's the kicker: 60.1%  strongly or somewhat agree with this: “The environmental impact of gas drilling outweighs any resulting reduced energy costs or energy independence.”

How can one agree with this statement at all and still support fracking, as it at appears at least 17% of those polled did?¹ If you think that the environmental impacts outweigh "any" of those benefits, why would you support any drilling process? I'm confused. (Editor's note: a reader suggested that perhaps some people think that jobs or royalties might make the environmental impacts worth it, but not lower energy costs or energy independence.  Maybe, though I find that hard to believe, and if true, it doesn't make me feel any better about what the poll suggests.) 

Again, it makes sense to me that someone might support the drilling process, and still express reservations or concerns about it. It just doesn't make sense to me that, in the same poll, presumably within a few moments of answering the question about supporting fracking, that someone would turn around and say, essentially, "I support fracking, but some key potential benefits don't outweigh the risks."  This is seems like a John Kerry moment for those being polled: "I was for it, before I was against it." 

As I have noted before, there are studies that suggest polls like this make us dumb. As a Joe Carter article explained about a 2011 public opinion poll relating to President Obama's performance: 

On the vast majority of the items tested (8 of 11) the public expresses disapproval of Obama’s job performance and yet the overall result implies that they approve of the job he is doing. How does that make any sense? It doesn’t. By the alchemical process of applied statistics, the pollsters have turned our disapproval into approval. Unfortunately, such distortions are a common failing of opinion polls.

I'm not sure if the fracking poll makes us dumber, or just shows we tend to be dumb. Probably both, and it's not very encouraging. As Mr. Carter explains, public opinion polls "are nothing more than public perceptions produced by pollsters, mere aggregations of our ignorance. And we all become dumber by treating them seriously." The results of the RMU poll suggest he's right.  

¹ From the release, the most sensible explanation of the data presented is as follows: if 60.1% of people agreed to some degree with the statement, then 39.9% did not agree. Those 39.9% of people are presumably pro-fracking relative to the 60.1%. At the same time, 57.1% of those polled stated that they support fracking, and 57.1% minus 39.9% is 17.2%, suggesting that 17.2% of of those polled said they support fracking but don't think the risks outweigh the benefits.  Admittedly, the poll answers would not likely break down this cleanly, but in that case the data makes even less sense.