Survey framing
From an admittedly bogus poll of my followers on Mastodon
The correct answer is “none of the above”. The most appropriate common name is probably “avocado”
It looks like most respondents didn’t know what Persea americana is, but assumed the question was about some actual controversy such as the appropriate name for Actinidia deliciosa cultivars — ‘kiwifruit’, but often called ‘kiwi’ in the US. This is frivolous, but it’s similar in many ways to putatively serious survey questions such as “bombing Agrabah” or asking about Harambe as a presidential candidate in 2016.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »