I READ Norma and Tony Moore's response to my letter with interest and not a little dismay.

I've already said I'll stay out of the rights & wrongs of the Sale Moor development - I was only writing to call them out on their abuse of the survey results that they highlighted.

They brought these figures to the table to support their argument, not me, and the misrepresentation of facts is the enemy of good decision-making.

But in paragraph two of their follow-up letter, they compound the felony by doing the exact same thing again. So, disappointingly, I have to write again.

It's really very simple: if you do a piece of research, and four out of five people don't give you any answer, you CANNOT infer / assume / guess what their opinion is. They haven't told you.

It makes no difference to say that non-respondents to the councillor's survey "don't seem to care one way or the other" (May 12 issue) or to change that to "don't seem to care ENOUGH one way or the other" (June 2 issue - my capitals on Norma and Tony's words).

Both are equally invalid statements based on the results. Just as invalid as Norma and Tony's conversion of the overwhelming 4:1 opposition to the supermarket into a 'small minority' through the improper use of the numbers. The research results as stated in Norma and Tony's original letter say NOTHING about the extent to which non-respondents care about, don't care about, or are simply unaware of the entire debate.

The writers continue: "...we do not really know why anyone does not respond, or indeed does respond, to a survey but really that does not matter particularly.". Well Norma and Tony, you can't have it both ways: you're admitting you don't know why these people didn't respond, but you're confident to have a guess at how they feel?

You can't turn the lack of a response into a guessing game, putting an opinion into the mouths of non-respondents. This is an abuse of the data, and I make absolutely no apology for pulling you up on it again. If you don't understand how this stuff works, please stop deploying it in your argument - you're not doing your credibility, or the debate, any favours.

As far as the research results go, the one thing on which I can agree with Norma and Tony is that their statement about non-respondents' opinion is 'just an assumption'. But let's call it out for what it is: a very unreliable assumption that does not flow from the research results they have provided.

As such, their assumption offers absolutely no insight into the opinion of Sale Moor residents outside Norma and Tony's own household.

Simon Jones,

Sale