George Box gave us: "All models are wrong, some are useful" and he was
speaking specifically of *statistical models*... I think the rest of us
apply it a bit more widely, and I don't think that is inappropriate. A
corollary to this might be, "all statistics are wrong, some are useful"?
I'm not sure "Statistics are Lies" is precisely accurate. I think
"Statistics are incomplete" and "Statistics are skewed" come closer but
*even* more to the point, I think, is "Statistics are used to lie".
Politics is unlike science in that it *always* seeks to persuade rather
than illuminate. To the extent that statistics (or a model) illuminates
a process or phenomena it is useful.
Journalism (in principle) falls more close to Science, attempting to
*Illuminate* rather than *persuade*, but in fact, I don't know that much
objective journalism is practiced these days... much journalism is
thinly disguised politics or at least heavily informed by the ideology
of publisher/editor/backers. I'm not attacking journalism as conceived,
but rather more as practiced. I'm not sure where Polling falls. In
principle, it is based in sound scientific/statistical principles, but
in fact it is funded/driven either by *overt* political interests
(parties, PACs, etc.) or *covert* ones (biased media).
To the extent that news and politics are a coupled, self-referential
system capable of feedback loops in near real time, it should not be
surprising that some folks in the trade (either J or P actually) may
choose to declare their opinions (or more to the point preferences or
fantasies) as facts, hoping/trusting they will be consumed as such.
Where more justification is required, it seems easy enough to
deliberately skew polls (in their formation or in their analysis or
both) in a way that is far from honest but maybe not evidently so upon
casual observation.
This leads me back to Americans Elect who have been discussed here off
and on. My initial turnon was their superficial rhetoric... it sounded
like they wanted to help me take back my vote from the conceptually
gerrymandered process that currently seems contrived specifically to
make sure I only have lesser of evils to vote for. When I signed up
and filled out their questionaire, etc. I was appalled at the nature of
the questions and the multiple choices allowed for answers. All were at
best half-truths and many were very misleading IMO... much like a poll
being taken during a heated campaign.
I'm just now dipping back into Americans Elect... it seems more positive
than I remember over (nearly?) a year ago when I first dipped in...
30+ questions into their "match questions" I am only skipping or
unsuring about 1/10. An odd artifact is the way Wyoming seems to be an
outlier in their answers to many questions... ND is another... maybe
just low sampling? Once again... statistics about the statistics would
hlep!
- Steve
Personally, I find polls confusing. I like this page:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html
that projects multiple polls down to a simpler space. Best I can tell,
the error for the ABC/WaPo poll is is 4 points, the Pew poll is 3
points, and Rasmussen's is 3 points. Even ignoring how the questions
are worded and asked and their domains (RV/LV, demographics, geography,
etc.), we see a lot of wiggle from poll to poll. The most interesting
thing to me are the correlations between who's responsible for the poll,
their political bias, and the results of the poll. It would be
interesting to see how much and in what direction each wiggles over
time. E.g. does Rasmussen wiggle _more_ than Pew? Or do WaPo polls
wiggle with a skewed distribution?
It's obvious that statistics are lies. But perhaps the statistics of
the statistics would show patterns in they lying that would allow one to
spot lying trends.
Owen Densmore wrote at 03/14/2012 10:32 AM:
This:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/poll-obama-leads-gop-candidates-head-head-contests-151032764.html
is an interesting Pew poll on the whole election scene, Republican
primary as well as an Obama second term.
I'm a bit surprised about the Health Care tie, although is makes sense
if one compares other alternatives that at least approach a single payer.
-- Owen
Quote:
President Barack Obama is leading all of the Republican presidential
candidates in head-to-head match-ups, according to a poll released
Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
<http://www.people-press.org/2012/03/14/romney-leads-gop-contest-trails-in-matchup-with-obama/>
A national survey taken March 7-11 showed Obama leading Romney by 12
percentage points (54-42) and even further ahead of Santorum with 57
percent of support to Santorum's 29 percent. Those numbers are
likely to shift as Republicans rally around a single candidate in
the coming months, but as a snapshot, the data suggest a brighter
scenario for Obama than in previous polls.
Bullet Point Headings (expanded in article):
Obama's approval rating rises to 50 percent
Romney's national lead widening among Republican primary voters
Americans think Obama will win a second term
A majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Republican
candidates after a long primary
Voters don't know that Santorum is Catholic
Republicans struggling with women and minorities
Nation split over federal health care overhaul
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============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
