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LostInParadise's avatar

How reliable is the Pew research center?

Asked by LostInParadise (31915points) February 24th, 2020

I just gave an interview to someone from the Pew research center. I suppose that I have no way of guaranteeing that is who they are, but I did not give away personal information like credit card number or social security number, so I think it is fair to figure they are who they said they were. I initially felt good about doing the interview, but afterwards had doubts.

Who does the funding for Pew? How do they decide what questions to ask? What method do they use for selecting people? What percentage of people agree to be interviewed, and might this affect the results? The Wikipedia article on Pew said that for religious matters there is a connection to the Templeton Foundation, which did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

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4 Answers

elbanditoroso's avatar

They get their money from the Pew Charitable Trust.

The Trust and the Research Center about as gold-standard honest as you can get. Non partisan, non-ideological, non-political.

They’re honest.

LadyMarissa's avatar

Pew is considered to be a think tank of current events in the US. They prefer to be called a nonpartisan fact tank. I had never heard of them until several different Q’s appeared here on Fluther. In looking closer at them, I’m NOT completely comfortable trusting them. Their website looks impressive, but so do many of the SPAM artists websites!!!

I don’t think you did any harm answering their questions, but I don’t know that I’d completely trust how they assemble their information just yet!!!

dabbler's avatar

I’ve heard reporting/analyses associated with Pew Charitable Trust for decades and it always appears to be reasonable and trustworthy.

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