Timeline for What do poll probabilities actually mean
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| Oct 19, 2017 at 6:25 | comment | added | eSurfsnake | Your chances of dying (or not) are not a repeated experiment. I see what you are troubled by. But, really, tell me this: Suppose you could buy life insurance, you are young, and have 3 children. With an uncertain test, if it tells you you will die because 51 of 100 trials say you will , or if, instead, 99 of 100 trials say you will die, which would cause you to invest in life insurance? Any reasonable person would worry about their family if 99 test said they would die...at 51 many people would be a lot less worried. | |
| Oct 19, 2017 at 6:19 | comment | added | mguzmann | but dying can be viewed as a probabilistic event, either by repeated trials (many people trying), or by comparing to other people who under the same conditions died or didn't die. There is nothing probabilistic about an election. | |
| Oct 19, 2017 at 6:14 | history | undeleted | eSurfsnake | ||
| Oct 19, 2017 at 6:10 | history | deleted | eSurfsnake | via Vote | |
| Oct 19, 2017 at 6:01 | comment | added | eSurfsnake | I'll try one more way. Suppose you feel sick. There is a blood test to determine if you have a fatal disease. The problem is that it is sometimes wrong. The doctor does 100 tests on you. Suppose, first, that you are told 51 of the tests say you will die, but 49 say you won't. Now suppose that the doctor tells you that 90 of the tests say you will die, and 10 don't. What do you think are the chances of dying in each case? | |
| Oct 19, 2017 at 6:01 | comment | added | mguzmann | You're not answering the question. | |
| Oct 19, 2017 at 5:56 | comment | added | eSurfsnake | OK...suppose you call 100 people and 49 say 'A', and 51 say 'B'. Now suppose, instead, 25 say 'A' and 75 say 'B'. In the first case, if you do all the math, maybe that means B has a 55% chance of winning. But, I am sure you can see, that in the second case it is more likely that B has maybe a 99% chance of winning. That is what statistics is all about - converting data into chances. | |
| Oct 19, 2017 at 5:53 | comment | added | mguzmann | I understand the probabilities associated to sampling. What I don't get is what a '70%' of winning actually means. I'd understand if they say "candidate A is liklier to win" in the sense of "we have more confidence candidate A will win". | |
| Oct 19, 2017 at 5:45 | history | answered | eSurfsnake | CC BY-SA 3.0 |