Margin of Error Error
I’m no statistician — in fact, I’m no someone who’s ever gotten a statistic right — but doesn’t “margin of error” actually mean something?
Here’s MSNBC’s coverage of the latest poll of Democrats and “democratic leaners” [Forgot the capital, eh?] from Newsweek. The question seems to have been: Which Democrat do you support for President?
Clark: 14%
Dean: 12%
Lieberman: 12%
Kerry: 10%
Gephardt: 8%Margin of error: plus or minus three points.
MSNBC’s conclusion: “Retired Gen. Wesley Clark may have only entered the presidential race on Thursday, but he is already the Democratic frontrunner…”
Shouldn’t the actual headline be:
Now, lest you think I’m merely defending my boy Howie, let me hasten to add that the report continues: “The president?s approval rating now stands at 51 percent, down 1 point from last week?s poll…” Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the actual result of the poll that the president’s approval rating has not changed in a statistically significant way? That Bush’s overall approval rating was at 65% in May is another story, and that his rating for his handling of the War in Iraq slid five points to 46% in a week is an even bigger story.
I think MSNBC came to the wrong conclusion with these numbers as well: Dean fared worse (52% to 38%) than Clark (47% to 43%) and Kerry (48% to 43%) when matched up against Bush. Certainly MSNBC is just plain wrong when it says that “Clark fared better than the others” because of a 1% difference against Bush. But isn’t the difference between 38 and 43 statistically insignificant if the margin of error is plus or minus 3?
Categories: Uncategorized dw
First, there is no such word as “Democratic.” And, they should have used the term “Democrat leaners.” Democrats don’t have a monopoly on democratic policies. Anyway, the US is not a democracy, it is a republic (our representatives ultimately make the decisions). Republican policies, however, will remain Republican policies. And, why do we worry so much about dead heat vote tallies and hanging chads when the Electoral College is the ultimate deciding body?
I’m also bugged by, “Everyone IS entitled to THEIR own opinion.” Why can’t we invent a personal pronoun that is bi-gender? I suggest “his-her.” If someone has a resonable, one-syllable solution, I’d like to hear his-her suggestion. (Aaaahhhhh, I woke up and turned into Andy Rooney!)
DH – WHEN CLINTON LIED, NOBODY DIED.
There’s no such word as “Democratic”??? Say wha’?
In that case, can we start referring to the “Republic governor of NY” and the “Republic president of the US”?
David, you’re right according to dictionary.com:
dem·o·crat·ic
4. Democratic: Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Democratic Party.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
If you wanted to retain a strict parallel in how the parties are named, you would have to refer to the Republican party and its members as Republicans, and the Democrat Party with its Democrats. I guess if we had the Whig and Green parties alive and well in this country, there might be a Whiggy or Greenish President, or even the unfathomable Liberalistic President.
My credibility is blown, so I can’t begin to discuss the difference between “Islamist” and “Islamic.”
This dictionary also accepts “snuck” as the past tense of “sneak.”
DH – BUSH LIED.
David Weinberger: Democratic Candidates in
David Weinberger: Democratic Candidates in Statistical Dead Heat A good reminder that anyone attempting to interpret poll results should first understand statistics…
If Clark is polling at 14% with a three-point margin of error, that means there’s a 95% chance that his actual support, among the population from which the sample was drawn, is somewhere between 11% and 17%. However, that level of actual support is more likely to be 13-15% than 11-13%. Likewise, Dean’s support is more likely to be 11-13% than 13-15%.
So it is accurate to say that among the population that was sampled for this poll, more people are probably supporting Clark than Dean; if I spent an hour with the Cartoon Guide to Statistics I could tell you what the odds of that are.
Dan, I believe you have contradicted yourself. If we do not live in a democracy, then why do you care if the Democrats use the word Democratic? I know that many Republicans call it the Democrat Party because they think Democratic sounds too good, implying that Republicans are not democratic, but you are saying yourself that this is not a democracy, a position espoused by many Republicans. So why do you care if the party of the Democrats is called the Democratic Party? Besides, don’t you have better things to do than go around and contest the name of one of the two major political parties, as if they are going to change their name because you tell them to?
Furthermore, the hanging chads effected your precious electoral college system. Had they not used such antiquated voting equipment that had 3x the error rate of other technologies in the poor counties, and had Jeb Bush not cooked the books by purging the voter rolls, Al Gore would have gotten Florida’s 25 electoral votes and won by I think 22 electoral votes. Hope that clears it up for you.
Help”>http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1090&px=1318480″>Help make this a September to Remember
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