| > Due to their inability to poll a representative slice of the population they try to correct by adjusting their results to compensate for the difference between who they've polled and the likely makeup of the electorate. This is where polling becomes race science. > This makes sense in theory It does not make sense in theory. It is a necessity for the profession, but all justifications for it are specious. Polls only get it right when everybody is getting it right. What they offer is false precision and justification for the current narratives. It's similar to AI in that way. It's also similar to the mythical prediction markets that polls have been compared to lately, the "mythical" here meaning with no insiders involved. On issues where there are no real insiders, like close elections, the prediction markets are simply a lagging indicator of what pundits said in the paper this morning. That goofy Iowa poll swung them so hard that I thought Seltzer should have been investigated for whatever the prediction market equivalent to securities fraud is. It might be more accurate in light of the OP to say that polls get it right when everybody is getting it right, and when everybody isn't sure what's going to happen, polling accuracy is around 50/50. The best book to read about polling is The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland. It also tells you how to write defenses like this, which are part of the con. ----- edit: Section headings from "The Win-Win Game" from TFFBoCR, which teaches 10+1 ways how to make failures seem like successes: > 1. Persist, wonder and let it linger. > (Phase A: The psychic persists with the official statement and tries to encourage at least partial agreement. B: she acts puzzled, and invites the client to share the blame for the 'discrepancy.' C: she leaves the discrepancy unresolved, in case the client finds a match later on.) > 2. I am right, but you have forgotten. > 3. I am right but you do not know. > 4. I am right but nobody knows. > 5. I am right, but it's embarrassing. > 6. I am wrong now, but I will be right soon. > 7. I am wrong, but it doesn't matter. > 8. I am wrong in fact, but right emotionally. > 9. I am wrong in fact, but right within [the] system. > 10. Wrong small print, right headline. > [+1]. Accept, apologise, and move on. > (In this way the psychic cuts her losses and moves on. She leaves the problem behind, where it will be quickly forgotten, and at the same time she comes across as extremely honest.) Very much worth reading for entrepreneurs looking for investment or any other confidence men. Rowland even tried to brand it a few years ago in Cold Reading For Business as the "CRFB" system. |