Your post is a classic example of the experts fallacy.
You begin with a few cursory sentences about the fantastically complex subject of statistical sampling theory. This establishes you as an expert. Do no argue with me, I will bury you with my expertise.
Next you assert the expertise of the pollsters.
“The people who get paid the big bucks are the ones who can extract the information from the noise.”
You can’t “independently prove and verify” how they “extract the information from the noise” because unlike scientific sampling theory how they do it is a proprietary secret. But they are experts so we must assume they know what they are doing.
As further proof that their work is valid you give us the fact that highly paid campaign consultants - Rove, Atwater, Morris and such - spend vast amounts of money on poling and they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t get value for their money. Take that for fact since they are experts in their field.
Well here’s a statistic that is provable and verifiable about Rove, Atwater, Morris and such - in every election 50% of them fail to get their candidates elected, despite all the cash they waste on polling.
Thank you, I will do my own thinking about the subject.
Well, you are most welcome to your opinion, and far be it from me to give self proclaimed experts any more credence than they deserve...
I don’t claim to be an ‘expert’, but I did get formal training and have worked professionally in the field, and thus at least as qualified as most people to comment, with all due respect :-)
My point is only that the reality is more akin to marketing research than the polls you and I see... the polls most likley to be accurate those that are used to guide the allocation of assets (as opposed to predicting who will win), are usually very propriatary and are considered to be accurate by the people who matter (the candidates and their staffs) by dint of the fact that the people who create them are paid to do so. You can disagree or disparage all day, but it’s the same combination of “scientific” measuring and ‘mojo’(interpetation) that every company from Ford to Johnson and Johnson do.
Unless you consider every company that pays for market research to be stupid for doing so.
And sampling theory is not really ‘complex’, 8th grade math at most; my point was only that it is sort of counter intuitive but verifiable that it CAN be accurate.