Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Polls

It is just becoming more and more obvious that the "emperor has no clothes".

Polls LIE.  The media LIES.  The LIE is that polls today are meaningful.

You doubt me (you should have learned by now).

I just heard that the final Zogby poll in Pennsylvania had Hillary Clinton ahead 51% to 41% (even those concrete numbers are a LIE, since the EXPECTED statistical error, even assuming a valid sample, means that there is a large range in what the poll really purports to show).   At the same time, the final Rasmussen poll in Pennsylvania shows Hillary Clinton with 49% and Barack Obama with 44% (only a 5% "margin", athough--again--the EXPECTED statistical "noise" error in the poll takes you from almost an even race to almost the 10% "margin" supposedly shown by Zogby).

These are both supposedly "scientifc", statistically valid polls.  How insane is it to suggest that polls mean ANYTHING when the results vary this much (not to mention how often they have been proven wrong this year). 

WHY does the media seem to rely MORE on polls, as the facts suggest that polls are meaningless, and that the media should rely much LESS on them? 

I have already told you the answer.  The media simply knows no other way to cover an electdioin campaign, except by reporting meaningless poll results that are not significant "news".  This is simply proof that the media today is totally incompetnet, and does not even know how to become competent.

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