{"id":4330,"date":"2011-06-01T21:50:40","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T02:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2011-06-01T21:50:40","modified_gmt":"2011-06-02T02:50:40","slug":"the-useful-idiocy-of-polling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4330","title":{"rendered":"The Useful Idiocy of Polling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Polls are commonplace these days and are often reported on as if they are actual factual snapshots. Joe Carter provides some useful analysis on why polls are pretty much worthless:<\/a><\/p>\n

Although opinion polls are often treated as if they were harmless detritus of the news-cycle, they are powerful tools for promoting overconfidence and slip-shod reasoning. Take, for instance, two of the worst types of polls\u2014those that purportedly measure \u201cfavorability\u201d and the \u201cjob approval rating\u201d of politicians such as the president and members of Congress. Such polls might be useful if the general public were aware of the president and legislators\u2019 duties, and if we could appeal to a single, objective standard to judge polls\u2019 relevance and faithfulness to truth. But we don\u2019t. Instead, polls create an illusion of assurance, allowing us to fool ourselves into thinking we have precisely quantified our vague qualitative judgments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Be sure to read the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polls are commonplace these days and are often reported on as if they are actual factual snapshots. Joe Carter provides some useful analysis on why polls are pretty much worthless: Although opinion polls are often treated as if they were harmless detritus of the news-cycle, they are powerful tools for promoting overconfidence and slip-shod reasoning. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,54,12],"tags":[1059],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-polls","category-tom","tag-polls"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t