One subtlety of that Quinnipiac poll the other day...

[malthaussen]

... several people have commented about the fact that while 69% of respondents think Mr Trump is not sane, only 57% consider him unfit to be President. They worry about the 12% who think it is okay to have a madman as President.

But it's actually worse than that. This presumes that all 31% who do think Mr Trump sane also believe him fit to be President. But is this a safe assumption? After all, I can think of many people whom I think are perfectly sane, but unfit to be President. So, for every 1% of that 31% who do think Mr Trump is sane, but unfit -- another 1% think it's okay to have a madman as President.

See, we have even more reason to worry about the State of the Union than we thought.

-- Mal

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Thanks for that uplifing thought, my dear malthaussen!

J/K!

It is a good thought, though depressing.

~sigh~

[malthaussen]

4. I wouldn't be me if I didn't love pointing out difficulties.

One of my most sterling qualities.

-- Mal

[Irish_Dem]

2. I may sound paranoid, but could the polling companies be rigged like everything else?

Some of the results defy logic and common sense.

I think polls are bi-directional, public opinion shapes polls.
But polls shape public opinion.

It is human nature to go with the crowd, so polls can influence public
thought. So an evil genius good use polls to shape prevailing public opinion.

[malthaussen]

3. Does Art imitate Life, or Life, Art?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? And like that.

But I'm not concerned with methodology, here. It's a good topic to consider, though.

-- Mal

[Irish_Dem]

5. You are sounding like a Buddhist here. :)

I bring up the validity of polls, because these results seem to defy logic.

[malthaussen]

6. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Dunno, but I think that smiley of yours demonstrates it.

Seriously, though, this is one reason I am skeptical of social "science." Human behavior may be susceptible of quantitative analysis, but I think there are too many variables, and the nature of cause and effect too poorly understood, to have it be anything other than a crude approximation at present. And about useless as a predictive tool, or Hillary Clinton would be our President today. But it does provide data to play with, which justifies the livelihoods of numerous pundits, who otherwise might have to work for a living. So, that's a plus.

-- Mal

[Irish_Dem]

7. Yes social science research is complex and has so many variables.

I have a PhD in one of the social sciences and have done research, so I understand
the difficulties. But I do think we have been able to determine valuable insights into
human behavior.

Edited to add: One of the first things a researcher learns is GIGO, "garbage in, garbage out."
That is why I am questioning the validity of some of the polling data.

[malthaussen]

8. Historian, me.

I don't know enough about Quinnipiac's methodology to pass judgement, but I am becoming more and more convinced that a substantial number of respondents intentionally troll poll takers. But obviously, one could hardly conduct a poll to see if that hypothesis can be substantiated.

Also have a computer programming background, so GIGO is as familiar to me as LIFO.

-- Mal

[Irish_Dem]

9. Good research often starts with a hunch.

And you and I both have a hunch that something is off with the polling data.

Could they deliberately over or under represent certain sample groups?
If they are doing stratified sampling that would not be hard to do.

But you are thinking that a substantial number of respondents are reporting
false opinions. That is possible, self report data is notoriously unreliable.

How does LIFO apply to social science research or polling?
Is it more of a programming concept?

[malthaussen]

10. LIFO is a programming term, yes.

Means "Last in, first out," referring to how data or instructions are queued. Visualize one of those plate-stackers in a cafeteria: the last one on is the first one removed. In lower-level systems programming (using what are called assembly language or machine code), this kind of sequencing is important, but it's mostly irrelevant in high-level applications (eg, programs written in BASIC or C+++++++).

-- Mal

[Irish_Dem]

11. Very interesting.

Had never heard of the term before, thank you for the explanation.
Going in reverse order somewhat.