Maxdeath
Diamond Member
- Jun 12, 2018
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So they are used for things but not accurate. They are extremely important but they are only accurate in certain circumstances. Companies and political candidates pay big money for polls that are not accurate or are only accurate in certain circumstances or certain instances.Polls don't tell us whether a car, a beer, or politician candidate is good or bad. They only tell us what people think.Ah sarcasm eludes you. If polls were able to predict so well there would only need to be one car built, one beer offered for sale, no need for people to vote. The problem is science wants to believe it understands how humans think and act, therefore it can predict everything about them.Polling services do exactly that. They tell manufactures the kind of product the consumer wants, marketing the kind of advertising most likely to produce results, and policy makers what the public wants from government. However, polls are not the only forecasting tools used by businesses and government.So we should be able to determine everything by polling then. It will make shopping so much easier as we can poll everyone to see what they want to buy, what car to sell, what dishwashing soap to stock, what beer to sell. Imagine just how handy it will be to know in advance who the governor will be, who will be police chief.If your results from the poll is the same for 5,000 sample as it is for 1,000, then why poll 5,000. Polling organization use different samples sizes to determine the optimum number in a sample.Exactly. A thousand or even more gives no real indication. Especially if it is even slightly skewed toward democrats, big city, those that have time to spend on taking polls, etc.
The problem is it is very far from even coming close.
Polls are only accurate when people have strong opinions or preferences. For example if a poll was done to determine the best table sale, it would be worthless because there is little difference in taste and most people don't have any opinion. Politician polls are much more accurate because most people have strong opinions and preferences in regard to candidates and issues. Studies have shown that political polls are among the most accurate, about 80%. Polls on the death penalty vary greatly because people vacillate. I have never seen a poll on beer, however you can bet that people who market and advertise the products have.
In politics, government, and business polling is extremely important because it tells us what people think about issues, political candidates, consumer products, and public policy. Governments, politician candidates, and business spend billions of dollars on research studies and polls to determine public opinion. If it was worthless, they would not be spending that kind of money on it.
Got it.
So if polls are only accurate in certain instances and certain circumstances how accurate are they if you have say an extra 10% of the people polled that lean Democrat? What happens to the extreme accuracy of a poll that has a slightly larger number of undecided? What happens to this supposed accuracy if someone feels a need to keep from being chastised by a pollster?