Letters to the Editor
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@jayackroyd @rollotomasi
It isn't clear any polls were "wrong", (to me, it isn't clear what it means for a poll to be "wrong"). Chris Bowers' analysis was interesting. I do know that all my New Hampshire relatives voted a week or two ago. I think there was a genuine backlash, but I also think that the press totally misinterpreted the results of the Iowa bounce. I know of at least one person who is so enthused that a revolt against the press has started that they intend to vote protest instead of for a preferred candidate. The level of anger at the press coverage is probably higher than the press imagines, because the press thinks it's only bloggers whining, and their "product" is accomplishing its "business objectives" within budget.
A word of caution about the science program you saw, yes, science is never 100% sure (unlike mathematics, where it happens all the time), but sometimes they are very, very sure. Sure enough for you to drive down the highway riding in a device whose safety measures were designed by their theories. Sure enough that you can take the medicine the doctor gives you with confidence. Sure enough about the uncertainty principle that a whole computer RAM memory can be designed and built using its effects to save energy.
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@Kitt
It would be good to flesh out again all the techniques of triangulation as a reminder of the games the Clintons played, and still play.
We all forget, and you're bringing it up reminded me of how irritated I was when I first understood it all as a set of campaign, and, governing techniques.
It's intellectually dishonest and not based in any way on principle. Tactics. Tactics. Lonely teardrops. What's that?
Whether Obama is seasoned enough to be president this year, I'd favor real grass roots community organizers any day.
The Clintons still work from Dick Morris School of Consulting handbook.
Now, who hasn't had quite enough of Dick Morris?
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Ne'Quails1 (anaerobe)
okay. I promise. Later today. I'm off to the tooth fairy.
Serious. I realize. I'll go moo, moo, and make a weak donkey hew-haw sound. huh-haw, hawhee, hay, and crows squawk all morn here.
But intuitive-quail-bird...I hear you tweet. Ya's are sweet. But please stop thinking this way...It makes me feel rotted with a calf decay.
I'll brush, floss and go today. yep.
Take a sip of hipster Dada and go nap?
Get back with the quack in two weeks.
Who don't need some green concoctions?
O, gulp herbal brew for vim a' vigor!
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@bystander
Thanks, I read the article you linked to and I think you quoted the most interesting part. I disagree with his statement that you cannot claim a trend in a day and a half. If a change is unusually large, then it is unlikely to be canceled by another change in the next day and a half, and therefore you do have significance in a short time. Determination of significance should be based on both time and magnitude.
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@Dirigo
If they can't prognosticate, and talk to the consultants and various other soothsayers and court Rasputins, they can't keep their audience glued to the tube.
Not for the cheap price of hiring a pundit and never going out of the studio, I guess.
But what would happen if they decided to devote the down time to interviewing voters in New Hampshire about the issues? Polls have a tough time with volunteered data or with (to mix metaphors) "essay questions." Voters and audiences don't.
One of the weirdest shows I listen to is Ira Flato, science Friday. I like some of the topics, but the way he keeps trying to move his guests towards faster and shorter explanations is like fingernails on a blackboard. He's been trained that listeners won't like the long version, but I remember one time Joyce Carol Oates literally took over a talk show one morning (from Michael Krasny) and basically ran the thing, taking as much time as she wanted on what she wanted (to within station breaks), and it was one of the best shows I've ever heard.
These guys forget that people also watch the Discovery channel, and like being informed. What would happen if a guy like James Burke ran a "Connections" like show about the elections on election night? There's all sorts of things they could do that people would like. Hiring a pundit for a million dollars a year isn't one of them.
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@ ondelette
We must teach more science. We must teach more science. If I could put that to a reggae beat and play it everywhere all the time -- in elevators and shopping malls, in between bloviators on Fox News, on satellite radios -- I would. How about another verse in the National Anthem, sung by Beyoncé or Mary J. Blige at the Super Bowl?
I really appreciate your defense of science here, and your explanations of particular bits of it from the point of view of an expert practitioner. If ever the yahoos look to take over completely -- unlikely, given their ignorance, but not impossible -- I'd be happy to help furnish secret scriptoria where the work can be recorded against the coming of a better day :-)
I forget who complained earlier about the creationist crap on sale at the Grand Canyon, but living in Arizona, I've always been embarrassed to take out-of-state-friends to the GC gift shop. Even though it's the Feds' fault, not the locals, I always cringe when I see it. I never believed I'd live to see the day.
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@Ondelette (lack of lack of certainty in science)
Yes, for example, we go about our lives in a universe apparently controlled by the deterministic laws of classical physics without even a thought that quantum mechanics is a better description. We just do not need it at our level.
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@William Timberman
Thank you. And I can say: We must teach more philosophy...We must teach more philosophy... It is all important!
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Science is Evil!
We must teach more science. We must teach more science. If I could put that to a reggae beat and play it everywhere all the time
Science will blind you! Darwin is evil!
Science makes a monkey out of your uncle! Your tax dollars are spent on research for high tech weaponry the New World Odor will use to subdue and oppress you!
http://fredericksburg.com/News/Web/2007/012007/0130railgun