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HungryHobo 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: Lumifer 08 May 2015 08:33:25PM *  22 points [-]

The, ahem, money quote:

Interestingly, those who invested their own money in forecasting the outcome performed a lot better in predicting what would happen than did the pollsters. The betting markets had the Conservatives well ahead in the number of seats they would win right through the campaign and were unmoved in this belief throughout. Polls went up, polls went down, but the betting markets had made their mind up. The Tories, they were convinced, were going to win significantly more seats than Labour.

A bet is a tax on bullshit :-)

Comment author: HungryHobo 11 May 2015 11:36:47AM 1 point [-]

I was looking at paddypower (they take bets on the election) and while they were more accurate than the polls they were still underestimating the number of seats the tories were going to get by ~50 seats. I think the safest bet the day before was the tories in a coalition.

Comment author: Lumifer 11 May 2015 03:51:09PM 1 point [-]

Yes, the bookies performed better, but still not particularly well.

It has been been pointed out that it's hard to predict, especially the future :-)

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