1/ My father doesn't think probabilistically. But, he's not an idiot. So, when he's repeatedly said, "they don't know what they're talking about" or "look how wrong they were," it used to infuriate me. https://twitter.com/Aelkus/status/1055455200629153798 …
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2/ Some outlets did get 2016 very wrong. Other's didn't. And, if you bet bet against flipping two tails in a row for even money, you still win 3/4th of the time and made the right decision.
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3/ I've tried explaining that multiple times to him. But, he does a "get out of here" gesture each time. I initially thought it was an anti-intellectual reaction. Now I don't. It's mostly anger.
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4/ When most people see polling information, they aren't thinking probability -- they're thinking of the horse's position. They render the stochastic estimate as a concrete place. They understand things may change. But, they think the poll is a photograph of now, not an estimate.
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5/ Moreover, they're (mostly) not using polls to make a decision; they're consuming polls as information -- the resolution of uncertainty. When reality fully resolves the uncertainty on election day, people discover they had a lot less information than they assumed.
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6/ That's disorienting. Of course it's going to induce distrust and anger. No one lied to them. But, it feels as if they did. Something that they were told "was going to happen" didn't.
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7/ I don't think any number of disclaimers can help. Probabilistic thinking is hard. Polls mostly provide consumptive entertainment. So, my dad was mathematically wrong but 100% right.
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Replying to @generativist
I think the problem is that the media is terrible at describing statistics in context
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Yea. And, I don't think there's much incentive to do better.
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