4 ms·

What does "competent" mean if none is competent? Are engineers incompetent because they can't put a person on Mars?

• tsimionescu 6y ago
  Sure, if some engineers told you "we are putting this person on Mars with a 99.9 probability", and the rocket in fact reaches Venus, the engineers are incompetent. Also, polling in most European countries doesn't go this far wrong, on almost all polls. So it's not like "accurate polling is impossible", it's just the polls in the US that seem to have some problem (though there have been some spectacular failures in other countries as well, which itself may lead to some thoughts on the value of polls in general).
  • evgen 6y ago
    > polling in most European countries doesn't go this far wrong, on almost all polls. Brexit and UK elections would like to have a word with you... Polling everywhere sucks. Pick a country and chances are it either has no polling to speak of or else it has the same problems.
    • disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      YouGov are pretty good, mostly because they grew up in the Internet Age. But I agree with your general point.