The Nature Of Data.
Mark Twain supposedly said, "Figures never lie, but liars figure." Twain also is reported to have said, "There are lies, d--- lies and statistics." I am a little kinder. There is no doubt that dishonest people will use numbers to mislead, but in reality, most data results are inaccurate because people make mistakes; more pointedly, they do not use common sense. My experiences as an academician and a member of public and governmental boards have taught me that people often fail to understand the relationship between cause and effect. They are more interested in having data that backs their position than having accurate data.
The Role Of Common Sense.
The type of mistakes leaders make is exemplified by a simple examination question I gave to a senior risk management class. I told the students to think through the problem and not to work on it if it was flawed. However, they had to explain the flaw. The problem contained a credibility factor of 120 percent. A 120 percent factor means that something is more than 100 percent accurate or reliable.
Only a tiny minority of the class saw the conflict. Unfortunately, in the academic world, faculty not only make mistakes but sometimes fabricate data in an effort to publish. These fabrications occur not only in the scholarly fields of business, engineering, and science but also in the medical field. And in business, I have seen mistakes as simple as the one I gave the students occur.
The Election Missteps.
The students' failure to use common sense brings me to the next election—no, not the last one; I mean the next election. However, to examine the next election, we are forced to explore the last election.
James Carville, a political operative I respect, and the famous Iowa Poll have two things in common. They both predicted that Vice President Harris would win the election. Mr. Carville touted her impending victory on October 23, 2024, in an op-ed piece in The New York Times titled "James Carville: Three Reasons I'm Certain Kamala Harris Will Win." (I have to confess, as a researcher, I rarely said anything was "certain"; this is a sure way to be wrong.)
On November 2, the Des Moines Register ran an article citing the results of a poll. The headline read, "Iowa Poll: Kamala Harris leapfrogs Donald Trump to take lead near Election Day. Here's how."
The second thing Mr. Carvell and the poll have in common is they were both wrong. Mr. Carville is a political pundit and can be excused for being exuberant about the democratic party candidate. In addition, Mr. Carvelle based his analysis on intuition, not data. I applaud the fact that he has subsequently run another op-ed, which points out that he was wrong and that it was "the economy, stupid." Not many people step up and admit they are wrong. His willingness to be forthright is one of the reasons I respect James Carville.
The Nature of Polls And Fear.
The Iowa polling results are more puzzling. How could the poll be so wrong? Two days before the election, I was reasonably confident Mr. Trump would win. I felt confident the polls were incorrect. I know it is easy to say this after the election, but let me make my case.
There is a fear in this country about being looked down on or being wrong. We are a society where everyone wants to be above average, like the residents of Lake Wobegon. Fear is the reason that people will not disagree with DEI initiatives. No one wants to be told they are wrong; no one wants to be discarded. People do not want to be targeted for what someone says is bigotry or a homophobic attitude. It is much easier to keep your head down than to take a position. There are exceptions.
An Outlier.
British outlet The Telegraph reported Monday that the Freedom From Religion Foundation pulled the article "Biology is not Bigotry" from its site following backlash from pro-trans individuals. In turn, Dawkins resigned.
In his resignation letter to the foundation, Dawkins called the removal of the piece "an act of unseemly panic"....
While Richard Dawkins, an atheist, and I, a Christian, are on opposite ends of the religious spectrum, I find his decision to resign refreshing. Whether his stance is correct or not is not the issue. The issue is he is unwilling to be bullied.
Name Calling Serves No Purpose, Regardless Of Who Is Doing It.
Most people are not willing to take the stand that Dawkins took. Thus, the problem with the Iowa poll and all of the other polls during the election is that many Trump supporters demurred from participating in a survey. But why? It is simple. President Biden called them garbage, Hillary Clinton called them a basket of deplorables, and on the Daily Show, years ago, they were called a tub of trolls, a satchel of scumbags, and a hamper of hatred, among other things. (The right is not immune to name-calling. Some on the right verbally demean those on the left.)
Subjected to this type of name-calling, Trump supporters often would not participate in a survey or would say they were undecided. Every Republican friend I have said they would not respond to a poll or would say they were undecided. There were no exceptions. Before you point out that my sample was not statistically significant, I know that. But it forced me to view polls with a little common sense. I knew that in a close race, Trump was actually ahead. The sampling process was biased.
Pollsters will quickly retort that the margin of error takes care of this problem. It does not. While a margin of error accounts for some bias, it cannot account for all biases, especially the bias I have presented. The numbers should not be blamed. Pollsters did not have a random sample. In fairness to pollsters, they had no way of correcting the data.
Data Must Provide A Result That Makes Sense.
Whether a corporate CEO or board member, a mother who home-schools her children, a faculty member, a member of the clergy, or a blog writer, we must accept the fact that data cannot be taken at face value. The data results must make sense.
The pollsters will try again in the 2028 presidential election. Will they be more prescient? The answer is maybe. Maybe the next presidential race will be filled with peace and harmony. There will be no deplorables. However, if this is not true, the polling results may be inaccurate again. I am inclined to rely on the well-liked commentator Paul Harvey, who passed away in 2009. He is reported to have said, "If there is a 50-50 percent chance something can go wrong, then 9 times out of 10 it will." If you accept his mantra, the next election polls will be as accurate as the last ones.
Maybe AI can solve the problem. It is going to replace the rest of us, so why not pollsters? Of course, I am not sure AI has common sense.
Picture by Vecteezy
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