Steve Freeman bitchslaps Russ Baker (sorry if dupe)

[ClintCooper2003]

http://nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/2005/01/news-statisticians-under-fire-for.html

Here's an excerpt:

News From The U.S. Election Reform Movement

Saturday, January 22, 2005
News: Statisticians Under Fire for Decrying Suspicious National Exit Polls Fight Back, and Fight Back Hard

.

BY STEVEN F. FREEMAN

Russ Baker's critique of my work analyzing the exit-poll discrepancy ("Election 2004: Stolen or Lost?") –- and, by implication, of the courageous stand taken by John Conyers and a small number of his Congressional colleagues –- is flawed from the first line. No one has said, "Exit poll results were more accurate than actual ballots." The question is whether the official count is an accurate reflection of ballots cast. In a system where campaign managers serve as election supervisors, where voting machines provide no assurance that votes are counted as cast, and where counts and "recounts" are conducted in secret, we must rely, unfortunately, on indirect evidence, such as exit polls, to ascertain the veracity of this official count as a measure of actual ballots cast.

Baker's critique begins with a sloppy attempt to shoot the messenger, questioning my credentials. For the record, since obtaining my Ph.D. in Organization Studies from the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management in 1998, I have served for three years as an accredited member of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania -– originally at the Wharton School of Business, and now in the School of Arts and Sciences; and the remainder of that time at equivalently demanding institutions in Latin America, including an international M.B.A. program established by Harvard University.

Baker discards my findings because I am "not an expert in polling," but I teach research methods and survey design -- a domain that includes polling -- at the University of Pennsylvania.

[Carolab]

1. This is good.

"Temple University Professor of Mathematics John Allen Paulos wrote in a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer that "huge differences between the final tallies and the exit-poll percentages occurred in ten of the eleven battleground states, all of them in Bush's favor. If the people sampled in the exit polls were a random sample of voters, Freeman's standard statistical techniques show that these large discrepancies are way, way beyond the margins of error." ."

I didn't know about the Philly Inquirer story--when did this run?

[Helga Scow Stern]

2. Thanks for posting. Russ Baker...........

another of the "proudly ineffectual"?

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. This is excellent. I hope it has legs. Here is Freeman's web site

The part with links to some of his presidential election work is here:
http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
and on that page are also links to his home page.

I hope he stays safe -- he has a family with children and he is being very courageous. If they thought he had a chance of succeeding against them, he would do well to avoid single engine planes. I imagine the blivet** cartel feels safe in the assumption that "average" Americans view arguments based on statistics with suspicion and will be easily deflected from them with the usual propaganda.

[Wilms]

4. kick n/t

[understandinglife]

5. Outstanding. No 'rolling over' ever again!! (nt)

BE THE BUSH OPPOSITION;24/7

[pauldp]

6. Kick!

I love this line:
"Scrutiny of an election with many unanswered questions does not damage public confidence in the democracy; absence of scrutiny does."

[anaxarchos]

7. kick.......................eom.

[Hugin]

8. Hmm...

Kick.

[meganmonkey]

9. Great use of the word 'bitchslap' !!

:P

And good article, too, btw!