From: Chuck.Lavazzi@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Chuck Lavazzi)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: More Nilges obfuscation (was:Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court)
Date: 23 Jul 92 03:35:02 GMT
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service

In article <1992Jul22.153726.1838@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>In article <1992Jul22.021817.13966@samba.oit.unc.edu> Chuck.Lavazzi@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Chuck Lavazzi) writes:
>>[Details of flawed polls conducted in 1936 and 1948 deleted; while I never
>>denied they were flawed, I claimed that the methodology used was primitive and
>>is unlikely to be seen in contemporary polls.  Ed says I have the specific
>>nature of the flaws wrong]
>
>Chuck, as part of my computing incunabula I have a book on the use of
>punched cards in university applications, published by Columbia in the
>1930s.  This book advertises itself as "modern" and it decries the use
>of pencil and paper methods using precisely the same rhetoric as a
>modern day book on technology within the university.  The applications
>described are quite surprisingly sophisticated, including one that uses
>punched card devices to measure legal performance.  The results
>presented "look" more accurate and carefully presented than many of
>today's sloppy spreadsheets.
>
>The point?  Your uncritical acceptance of the cutting edge should be
>relativised to time.  Hell's bell's, people called themselves "moderns"
>in the 17th century.  That something is "contemporary" may be a
>disvalue.
>
	What "uncritical acceptance"?  I was merely pointing out the obvious
fact the polling techniques are more reliable now than they were many years
ago; and that the statistical methods used to analyze results *and* control
confounding variables are faster and easier to use due partly to advances in
computer technology.  Are they perfect?  Of course not.  Is there error
variance in the results?  Of course there is.  And it's generally reported with
those results.
	Don't put words in my mouth.  I never said current polling techniques
were perfect.  I was simply pointing out that lack of perfection is not a
reason to dump the entire discipline.

>
>
>>	I did not "steal your facts", Ed.  I don't have the reference handy,
>
>I hope you've learned your lesson and you will check your references in
>the future.  Chuck, we all have a responsibility to minimize the number
>of explicitly false statements on the net, such as your statement that
>the Literary Digest poll was in 1948.  Otherwise the net will become
>like Borges' Library of Babel, containing all possible combinations of
>letters, including "the true story of your own death", and countless
>false accounts.         
>
>>so I'm willing to concede that I had the specifics of what was wrong with
	For the record, I never mentioned The Literary Digest.  I said that
polls predicting Dewey's victory were flawed because they were conducted via
telephone and this made the sample biased  in 1948.  I don't recall *who* did
the '48 polls, in fact.  You were the one who brought up The LIterary Digest.

>>the '48 claims of a Dewey victory wrong.  It's still irrelevant to your claims
>>that contemmporary polling organizations deliberately distort their results
>>to benefit Republicans or that their methods are flawed in some fundamental
>>way; a claim which you have *yet* to back up with anything other than 
>>sarcasm and blatant assertions.
>
>The Literary Digest and Tribune cases, as well as the Upton Sinclair
>defeat, have all been adduced in support of my claim.  Today, evidence
>is ready to hand in the form of elections that are decided well in
>advance by polls, which push the electorate towards the right.  Polls
>are still largely conducted by telephone at times when "normal" people
>are expected to be home, which eliminates both people without phones
>like the Literary Digest poll, AND shift workers (the exhausted factory
>workers and computer operators shopping at the 7-11 at midnight.)
>
>There's plenty of evidence.
>
	Once again, the flawed work done in '36 and '48 does *not* support
your claim that *contemporary* polls are equally inaccurate. And your claim
that elections are "decided well in advance by polls, which push the elections
towards the right" is simply more blatant assertion.  What proof do you
have of this?  Where's the evidence, for example, that the last Presidential
election would have been any different with no polls at all?  For that matter,
what's your source for your claim about the times during which polls are
"largely conducted"?
	And what difference does it make, unless you plan to push for action
by The State to ban public opinion polls?
>>>
>>	First of all, the major polling organizations today are not "media"
>>organizations at all but rather survey research firms such as Louis Harris,
>>Gallup, and National Opinion Research Center.  It has ben a while since I
>>worked in this area, but I don't recall much of anything that came out of
>>NORC as being "secret".  Second, I never claimed polls *were* secret ballots.
>>Third, the fact that the principles of inferential statistics are "completely
>>unavailable to the citizen" (not accurate, by the way; stistics texts are
>>hardly State Secrets) hardly makes them invalid or suspect.  The principles
>>of data communications are hardly more accessible.  Does that make them
>>suspect?
>
>Your attempted reductio fails, because as data communications gets more
>sophisticated, marginal people are disempowered even as other marginal
>people are empowered.  You and I are empowered by being able to post to
>the net.  Many, many other people are completely   unfamiliar with data
>communications and the increasing amount of esoterica makes it harder
>and harder for these folks to jump aboard the data train.
>
	No doubt, but again, what's your point?  Are you proposing that
techonological change ought to be somehow slowed by State fiat?  If not, then
why bring this up at all, except as an argument for the importance of
emphasizing "computer literacy" in education (which I would support, in fact).
*I* was attempting to point out that technology is not inherently evil simply
because the average citizen can't fully comprehend it.

[..]
>>	Let me see if I've got this straight.  It's *not* a conspiracy, it's
>>just that all the American media organizations are trying to manipulate
>>political debate?  How is this different from a conspiracy?  Or is it just a
>>coincidence that they're all supposedly doing the same thing?
>
>If you had spent some time in the business world, you'd see how profit
>motives drives companies in patterns which are not conscious, yet are
>semipredictable; corporations behave as intelligent systems seeking to
>maximize wealth (this, after all, is part of the neoconservative
>hymnal.)  The New York Times can talk all it wants about "church/state
>separation" of editorial versus advertising.  Yet when was the last time
>you saw an explicit anti-smoking article in the NYT, for example?  
>
	None of this explains your postulated non-conspiracy conspiracy. 
How does it "maximize wealth" for a polling organization to deliberately
bias it's results to fit the needs of a particular political party?  And, 
as I said before, where's your evidence that this is actually happening?
A second blatant assertion is not proof for a first, except in forensics
contests.

And don't pontificate to me about time spent in the business world.  I've spent
15 of my 20 working years (so far) in exactly that world.  I'm there now.
I'm not the naive kid you seem to think I am.
Chuck
No .sig, no frills, no foolin'




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