Comments on: Nate Silver pretends to forget how polling works

By: 8r1k

8r1k — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:41:51 +0000

The reports criticizing SV came out before Silver posted anything on them, so I think calling them his boot lickers is a little misdirected. I just don’t see the point in defending an organization that is the laughing stock of the professional polling community.

By: Neil Stevens

Neil Stevens — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:24:22 +0000

Must have taken a while to work through the grapevine to Silver’s boot lickers.

By: 8r1k

8r1k — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:00:32 +0000

It isn’t just Nate Silver who has questions about SV. The American Association for Public Opinion Research started the ball rolling when they raised objections to SV not releasing any essential background on their polls during the primaries in 2008. http://aapor.org/AAPOR_Raises_Objections_to_Actions_by_Strategic_Vision_LLC.htm
A similar thing also happened with the folks over at Pollster.com http://www.pollster.com/blogs/did_the_dog_eat_the_data.php

Mr. Silver showed why he thought the SV poll’s results were underdispersed in a previous post: http://www.pollster.com/blogs/did_the_dog_eat_the_data.php.

I think you are right when you say there is absolutely no way to compare the two results as anything close to equal. However, there is really no way of knowing if their survey results are valid as they refuse to release their raw responses, cross tabs, or any other background info. Which is pretty standard for Strategic Vision on everyone of their polls.

By: mikefisk

mikefisk — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:28:12 +0000

…regarding the Cannaday poll, even if one wanted to use that as the baseline for comparison, (assuming they have statewide standardized tests in OK, I don’t know) how well do seniors in the pollster’s state compare to the rest of the state?

You test in a good school, you get better results. Also, testing seniors in one school seems less like a “poll” and more like “anecdotal evidence”.

By: Neil Stevens

Neil Stevens — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:10:17 +0000

Enough with the bitter sarcasm. I don’t have time for bad attitudes.

By: dantes

dantes — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:09:16 +0000

You are saying the Strategic Vision poll is the inferior poll because obviously students were giving bogus answers over the phone, instead of taking a test in a classroom-like environment.

Now which class taken between 9th grade and 12 grade did most Oklahoma students finally figure out that George Washington was the 1st President?

By: sacody

sacody — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:27:08 +0000

Reading his commentary on how unlikely the responses of various high school students relating to U.S. politics and history must be is quite comical. How serious do you think they were being with the pollster in the first place? I have seen crazier answers, and they were on real tests with real grades attached to them. If he’d spend a little more time in the classroom with teenagers for a while, then he would understand where the pool of people this information was coming from. Seriously, most of my students could not even tell you the events surrounding 9-11. To them that is ancient history and is not relavent to their daily lives.

By: bk

bk — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:54:32 +0000

Then they can somehow manage to hold a straight face while using their famous “There are those who say that (insert some lie)…” approach to “reporting”.

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:52:13 +0000

By: charleskirtley

charleskirtley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:22:33 +0000

Don’t worry. No one read it.