Yeah, I was immediately screaming the same thing. Arguing that "only" a tiny subset of a population is involved with a survey as a basis for rejecting its results is just plain ignorance.
The other stuff in the article does seem dodgy though, like arbitrarily tacking on 50% to reflect an assumed-but-unmeasured bias in the input sample. Ridiculous.
Still, the title is innumerate, sensationalist junk, and the poster should be ashamed.
The title was actually copied directly from the article. I completely agree that the title appears to be linkbait, but the blame should be placed on the editor and/or author of the post, not the poster.
The editor/author created the title to be sensationlist on purpose. HN is, I hope, not here to offer sensational headlines merely to grab extra viewers but as a way to share knowledge, information and wisdom. We should have higher standards for titles here IMO.
What I'd like to see is a subtitle (or tagging) system with a descriptive subtitle that can't be applied by the poster only by someone else. Poor subtitles would be downmodded too.
The other stuff in the article does seem dodgy though, like arbitrarily tacking on 50% to reflect an assumed-but-unmeasured bias in the input sample. Ridiculous.
Still, the title is innumerate, sensationalist junk, and the poster should be ashamed.