Pew Research Center has an interesting blog post showing some “striking findings” from their 2015 work, along with links to various surveys and analyses they did. Even if you didn’t tell me what the topics are, I would be interested in the graphics. Nice, clean time series plots, bar charts, “bump charts” – lots of bump charts, and even a pie. Their maps look good, except I don’t like the animated ones that move before you have time to look at them. They need a pause button.
You can see the striking findings on the site, but here are my top five:
- “For the first time since the 1940s, more immigrants from Mexico are leaving the U.S. than coming into the country.” Better move those guards to the other side of the wall! (Actually, there was a South Park episode about this as I recall…)
- 53% of white Americans say “Our country needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights with whites.” Which is not all that striking, except that it changed from 39% in March 2014 to 53% in July 2015. Unless there was some major flaw in the survey (and Pew is pretty good at surveys) that’s a big change in a short time.
- “People in countries with significant Muslim populations express overwhelmingly negative views of ISIS”. For example, 84% of people in the Palestinian territories disapprove.
- 88% of scientists think it is safe to eat genetically modified foods, versus 37% of U.S. adults. 82% of scientists think growing population will be a major problem, versus 59% of U.S. adults.
- 45% of the U.S. public thinks climate change is a very serious problem. But only 18% of people in China do!
Look at the pictures, they’re much better than my words.