Letter: Those who count and those who are counted

From Andrew Shand, Irvine, Ayrshire, UK

You say that you surveyed a “representative sample of 2026 UK adults” to report on the public understanding of science and technology (22 September, p 6). But then you say “all interviews were conducted online”. So, did you just guess the views of those who are not?

The editor writes:
• Our survey was designed by Sapio, a market research company in London that employs accepted industry methodologies to obtain a nationally representative sample. According to figures from the Office of National Statistics, 90 per cent of UK adults are “recent internet users” so any error margins associated with offline people not being online will be negligible.