I have a friend who works as an IT guy for the Social Sciences Dept at UC Berkeley, naturally my friend swings a certain way politically to keep a job like that. We also have the distinction of having both known Markos Moulitsas (Mr. Daily Kos himself), when we were in the Army stationed in Bamberg, Germany. I was only an acquaintance of “Kos” as he likes to be called but I chummed around quite a bit with the other guys in his squad (I was mechanized infantry and they were MLRS) it was a large post, and really all of that is inconsequential, except that the Daily Kos looms large for my friend in Berkeley.
My IT friend at UC Berkley apparently works closely with people that are at the cutting edge of the science of political polling. I imagine that’s not a bad business to be in considering that most if not all politicans (I’m not sure how Dr. Paul uses polling numbers) base their decisions on poll numbers. What has my dander up is that my friend made the quip that when Ron Paul supporting students occasionally come by they run away with their tail between their legs after they talk with politcal polling researchers in my friends department. I don’t know exactly what he means by that, possibly they challanged the data and the methods these researchers used and they didn’t go away happy.
It should come as no surprise that my friend worships at the alter of the Daily Kos, although he hasn’t told me that he’s rubbing elbows with Markos Moulitsas, he has dropped names of people he’s lunched with at UC Berkeley (people like Robert Reich) as you can imagine there are a few high level liberals that flow through the UC Berkeley Social Science Dept. from time to time. But in my mind there really is not much of substance on the Daily Kos except for these polling numbers at the top (seemingly always skewed to favor Progressives) and the rest is just harangues against Republicans (which we don’t care about) and of course Christians. To me personally it’s an evil place, but I can’t deny that Kos is good at what he does: providing a non changing format to allow a whole boat load of seemingly ignorant modern liberals to voice their rage, and not allowing dissenting voices to post. That undeniably is a winning strategy.
The question I have is can we ever trust these polls, at least the ones that we see? And is polling the be all and end all that the media and political scientists make it out to be? And how does this relate to the Austrian School and politicians like Ron Paul? I know I’m asking broad questions, but I’d like to to get a little better versed on this topic. If anyone has an informed opinion or can point me to someone who does I’d really appreciate it. Who knows I might be confronted by some researchers from the UC Berkeley Social Sciences Department some day, and I sure don’t want to be the running away with my tail between my legs
you want an avoidance technique that you can rely on should you ever be confronted with a device
with the ability to make people run away with their tails between their legs?
In a political system based on elections, the key to power is to control the questions. Polling is a weapon, and one of the most powerful ones in the arsenal of politicians. We would be wise to use it back against them.
you want an avoidance technique that you can rely on should you ever be confronted with a device
with the ability to make people run away with their tails between their legs?
Huh? I have no idea what you’re saying, I’m asking for help “confronting” people who right or wrong are at the top of their game (and being paid well for it) discovering better (at least in their minds) of polling.
This is a waste of my time for wondering, but why would you focus on my making a little joke about an idiom that was told to me?
Yeah that’s a big distinction between sociologists and anthropologists. Sociologists are effected in what they know by their sampling in how they get their poll numbers and usually its a questionnaire on paper in a very formal setting. Anthropologists using participating observation and then a whole other use of techniques such as interviewing, etc… can live what other people experience and come to know what’s happening more directly. Yet this approach has it’s limits cause you can’t know any society of people (two or more people) anywhere whether in a neighborhood, city, or country, unless, you live with them their whole lives and that’s impossible cause even if you live in a country without being an anthropologist it’s obvious no two people experience life the same way thus diverse opinions develop. Sociologists rely on their sampling of populations and then take that as fact about the population as a whole. Interesting answers come out of that, but there are numerous effects that can skew the sample. For one people don’t let their guard down and reveal what they really think and find to be true unless you can become friends with them and that can take a lot of time. There’s a lot more on this that applied anthropology has studied. If you are an outsider participating with people there are many barriers that need to be overcome to really get a sense of who another person is and what they really know and who they really are.
I meant this reply to be posted under nirgahamUK, but I don’t want to get into silly pissing matches, if in the real world you’re a decent chap nirgahamUK I apologize.
Intuitively I go along with the comments you guys are making.
What I would like to find is somebody with an informed opinion, that is somebody who has ever actually studied polling science, or can link me to something written about polling science that would make sense to somebody like myself who is very interested in Austrian Economic Theory.
The sad fact is that this is politics today, whether you go along with it or not, and to some degree this reflects the mistakes of Ron Paul’s '08 campaign. I don’t like to think about it but maybe there are some political lessons to be learned from the Daily Kos.
Well I’ve studied it, but in a minimal sense. I briefly outlined the internal arguments in the social sciences. Social scientists themselves disagree and write books (I have one on Applied Anthropology right here) that goes into depth on this topic. Classes are taught down the hall from sociologists in the anthropology department on the flaws of polling. Even sociologists understand their theories are lacking and they are clearly trying to find better theories and they haven’t thus far. It’s mainly due to a sociologists inclination to use a logical positivists approach, which explicitly denounces the value of an individual and yet the very field of study actively tries to figure out the values of individuals. So I pointed a direction to go, but I’m not an expert. So for what it’s worth.[:)]
One of the issues with polling is that it is an attempt to short circuit the nature of dispersed knowledge in any given economy by asserting that such knowledge is unimportant or statistically insignificant. Yet, time and time again, polling has been shown to be quite incorrect historically in picking the ‘right’ political candidate or picking the right social trends (in terms of political candidates, it’s an odd feature in polls that usually the 5th or 6th runner up (early on) in polls and candidacy primaries will wind up 1st or 2nd despite what seems to be a losing streak at first…). The question should be not whether or not polling matters, but why it seems polling misses all the data that ultimately leads to a counterfactual conclusion of events? I’ve not seen any statistic textbook or statistician explain well enough a solution to this problem, but then again I could be wrong on it. shrugs
It’s not so much formulating a question, as discussing how much power polling has and to what effect. A similar conversation can made about whether it’s a waste of my time to as an individual to vote in a national election.
It does become bothersome (I would think especially bothersome for someone who thinks that polls are all B.S.) to think that the people at UC Berkeley are convinced they are doing good work with their polling science, and that they are being paid a lot of money for this technology, also that they do there best to marginalize Ron Paul with their polls.
Never mind the “tail between the legs” comment that my Berkeley friend made and I reiterated, but remote as it may be I have a greater possibility of finding myself at a luncheon table with some Social Science Department heads from UC Berkeley and Robert Reich than the average person, and from what I understand the topic of politcal polling is guarenteed to come up. Maybe I would just ask the people at that luncheon table if they know what it’s like to be lied to? (like they never heard that one before
Even sociologists understand their theories are lacking and they are clearly trying to find better theories and they haven’t thus far. It’s mainly due to a sociologists inclination to use a logical positivists approach, which explicitly denounces the value of an individual and yet the very field of study actively tries to figure out the values of individuals. So I pointed a direction to go, but I’m not an expert. So for what it’s worth.
Thanks for bringing that up Wilderness, and yet the pollsters insist that it’s possible for them to become more and more accurate. That’s where the real B.S. enters the equation.
From what I can gather the logical positivist approach has more of an influence the close you come to the election, and then that’s were the out and out shenanigans start with this stuff.
When I think about the Daily Kos and the people at UC Berkeley they must be extremely challanged to create an unbiased honest poll.
The question should be not whether or not polling matters, but why it seems polling misses all the data that ultimately leads to a counterfactual conclusion of events? I’ve not seen any statistic textbook or statistician explain well enough a solution to this problem, but then again I could be wrong on it. shrugs
Ladyattis, I don’t believe it exists either, but my friend at Berkeley had mentioned they (I’m assuming he’s talking about his people at Berkeley) were so proud of themselves for supposedly hitting the mark with Obama and the recent election in Iran. Whether that be the case or not their very existence is justified by hyping any supposed success they have. The more I’m thinking about this the less I want to, but I guess it’s okay as long as it has some entertainment value and doesn’t hurt anybody.
Pollsters argue between themselves. Notice no two polls are alike. Some get very close, but if two or more questions are compared then the probably of them being alike go downhill. Sampling is gambling. And since they are happy their polls were accurate about Obama and Iran, then sure they gambled correctly. But I don’t think either of those two situations were surprises at all. I could have figured it out without polling. Polling seems to be a way to state: ‘Yeah see I’m right cause this percentage of people agree with me.’ I have a difficult time seeing it any other way.
