Question

A scientist plans to find out the cause of decrease in bird population in a location. He interviews 50 people who work in the local oil mine and 45 of them believe that the mine does not affect the birds. The scientist concludes that 90 percent of people in the location believe that the local oil mine does not cause decrease in bird population. Why is the scientist's conclusion most likely unreliable?

Answer 1

He didn't do any experiment and the source could be bais

Answer 2

The scientist is unreliable because he was supposed to be collecting data on why the birds are dying not why people think they are dying. Also the data (as useless as it already is) would be very biased because he is asking people if they think they are contributing to the problem. Its like if you asked cigarette companies if cigarettes were harmful rather than testing to see if they were.