• KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    But the other guy is right. There’s a problem with polling now because many people don’t answer the phone. It doesn’t matter how many people you have in the sample if it’s biased.

    In this case it’s clearly biased against people who don’t answer random numbers. The “not answering” cohort may be correlated with other population groups like people with higher education and higher earnings. The survey may be systematically missing this chunk of the population, making the results biased too.

    Higher educated democrats not surveyed -> the survey misses their opinions -> the survey is wrong when the results come in at election time.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Mate, it used to be cold calling landlines…

      Shit is getting more accurate, not less.

      Like, do you think more and better communication makes it harder to get reliable polling? You think doctors, lawyers, and rocket scientists were answering every phone call during dinner when it was landlines?

      And the switch to cell phones was like, a decade ago?

      Why is it now a problem?

      Like, what is your version of what’s happening that polls aren’t reliable now?

      Are you saying polls have been broke? Because polls were right in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. And not a lot has changed…

      So do you think this year “the media” is somehow doing a psyop campaign and rhats why people aren’t hyped about Biden? Because, newsflash, we weren’t last election either.

      So I’m really struggling to understand why out of the goddamn blue everyone and their brother who has never even walked down a hallway in college where statistical analysis was studied in the last decade suddenly became experts.

      This is the exact same bullshit the Republicans started as. Now they’re running trump.

      • summerof69@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Like, what is your version of what’s happening that polls aren’t reliable now?

        Didn’t they explain?

        In this case it’s clearly biased against people who don’t answer random numbers. The “not answering” cohort may be correlated with other population groups like people with higher education and higher earnings. The survey may be systematically missing this chunk of the population, making the results biased too.

        Higher educated democrats not surveyed -> the survey misses their opinions -> the survey is wrong when the results come in at election time.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            And it always has been…

            Yet every election going back decades was within the margin of error of polls.

            Statistics are not new. They’ve been around for a very very long time.

            I admit, I only took one graduate level statistical analysis course, so maybe you’ve got more experience.

            But it really sounds like a bunch of people who don’t know anything about science complaining about science because they don’t like the results…

            Do you know who else does that?

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          But that’s always been the case…

          And polls are normally right

          People think they’re bad now, because Hillary and the media said if she was projected by less then the margin of error, then she won those states and we can count on them.

          Which is stupid, and was only done because they thought she was more popular and resulted in just enough people staying home that trump won…

          How does that mean now when the polls are even worse, that we should ignore the polls and carry on with false confidence?

          It doesn’t make any any logical sense.

          • summerof69@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            People think they’re bad now, because Hillary and the media said

            No, this particular user thinks polls are bod because younger voters, who are more likely to vote for Democrats, are not going to pick up calls from random numbers. They were very clear. Why are you inventing arguments that were never mentioned in the discussion?

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              No, this particular user thinks polls are bod because younger voters, who are more likely to vote for Democrats, are not going to pick up calls from random numbers

              When was that not true?

              Edit:

              Agreeing to that was literally the first thing I said mate…

              But that’s always been the case…

              I’m not “inventing” arguments, you’re just ignoring explanations.

              That’s probably why this doesn’t make sense to you

              • summerof69@lemm.ee
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                8 months ago

                I’m not “inventing” arguments, you’re just ignoring explanations.

                I didn’t ask you for any explanations. Don’t take too much responsibility on yourself and play the lecturer. You failed to understand what they were trying to say, I tried to help. That’s it. I’m not here for your explanations, you have neither expertise nor credibility to teach others.

                • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  You failed to understand what they were trying to say, I tried to help. That’s it

                  No, I understood and typed a long reply going into depth how polls are the same they’ve always been, and they’ve been in margin of error of results for modern political history.

                  You missed the literal first sentence, apparently didn’t understand the test, and now are taking it personally.

                  You missed something, it’s not a big deal. But if you get upset at people correcting you, you’ll never learn anything.

                  Have a nice life, I won’t be spending anymore time on you.