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JoshuaZ comments on The File Drawer Effect and Conformity Bias (Election Edition) - Less Wrong Discussion

31 Post author: Salemicus 08 May 2015 04:51PM

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Tags: election polling effect drawer file britain confirmation bias conformity

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Comment author: JoshuaZ 08 May 2015 07:17:59PM 3 points [-]

Each time this has lead to big changes in the polling industry. I would suggest that one important scientific improvement is for polling companies to announce the methodology of a poll and any adjustments to be made before the poll takes place, and commit to publishing all polls they carry out

This would be a great change, but if they are worried about looking silly for having an incorrect outlier it may be very hard to create an incentive structure to get them to actually do this.

Comment author: Lumifer 08 May 2015 07:55:04PM 1 point [-]

What do you mean by an outlier in this context? That they screwed up in their methodology, or that by random chance they sampled all the old curmudgeons in some district, but none of the bright young things?

Comment author: JoshuaZ 08 May 2015 08:25:36PM 2 points [-]

Essentially the second, although the first could be a problem also. The point is that the incentive structure isn't there for them to precommit.

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