BS Special

Another poll bites the dust

Just as I was about to record a chat with guest scribbler, Brad Smith, he tossed this over the transom. We’ll chat later…!

BW

My favorite pundits to read right now are the ones who predicted a big win for Kamala and who now claim they know exactly why she lost. (Of course, it wasn't because she was a lousy candidate, heaven forbid)

If they are so brilliant that they all have it all figured out now, why didn't any of them have the tiniest clue about the issues that mattered two weeks ago?

They didn't have their fingers on the pulse of America then, but now they do?

Oh I know, the exit polls told them what they got wrong, right? LOL, OK then why didn't the pre-election polls get it right? Either polls work or they don't.

The fact is that exit polls aren't all that great either, they never have been, but the pundits love them because they need something to blather about. And the exit polls make them the "experts" again, all they have to do is read and act as if what they are reading is fact. Do you know why people believe exit polls are more accurate than election polls? It's because they can't be proven wrong and election polls can, that's the only reason.

I don't tend to believe in things that can't be proven. Faith is great when it comes to religion and marriage, but not much else.

The ability to make accurate predictions is one of the best ways of knowing if you are dealing with reality or not, it's true for everything from physics to economics to business and politics. These people who predicted a Kamala landslide were not dealing with reality. To make an accurate prediction, you must not only observe events closely but also filter out your own bias.

This brings me to Alan Lichtman, AKA Nostradamus. Either his model is flawed or he injected bias or both. If you look at his "keys" you will know at least one answer, he clearly injected bias.

For instance, he counted not running a primary as being good for her, he should have known that "key" was not valid, she was supposed to have run in the primary. Then he rated the white-house as having no scandals, the Afghan pullout was a scandal of epic proportions. I went down the list and found several Keys that I would have checked off as being against Kamala, that he put in her favor.

Regardless of who was right about each Key, his Keys are subjective in nature and this means that you need an impartial person/process to assign them a value.

In the future, he should find a way to remove the bias from his "keys", which could be done by allowing an AI to do it or for a panel of people to answer the questions for him, etc.

His biggest mistake was answering these questions himself. Even the best of us are rarely honest with ourselves regarding how biased we are. This is why double-blind experiments are used.

A good rule of thumb is that if you can put your thumb on the scale, you probably will, even if it's not done consciously.

Brad Smith

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