If you were being polled about an unfamiliar plan, would you more likely think that a) the pollster was asking you about a fictional plan, or b) that the pollster was doing a genuine survey, and that you just hadn’t heard about that plan yet? Granted, forming an opinion about something in the absence of any knowledge, just because someone asked you for your opinion, is another matter entirely.
This might be a distinction without a difference. The trick was to get people to think they knew about some topic X well enough to profess an opinion on it, even though in fact they didn’t know the first thing about X. Making sure that X doesn’t exist is just a cheap way to implement this trick.
Granted, forming an opinion about something in the absence of any knowledge, just because someone asked you for your opinion, is another matter entirely.
Isn’t it damning either way, and this dilemma the point of the setup?
Depending on the phrasing and any specifics of the plan presented to me, I might conclude that it was not only fictional but deliberate FUD; that sort of misdirection’s not unheard of. If I were given nothing but a label, though, I’d likely assume B.
The actual question was “Do you support or oppose the Panetta-Burns plan?” (The previous question was ”… the Bowles-Simpson plan?”) So you could infer that the two were related, and possibly partisan/opposing plans, but not much more than that.
Not sure …....................................................… 77%
both because I assumed more people had heard of him (which shows, I guess, I live in a bubble and don’t correct enough for it), and because I had assumed a more favorable score, with perhaps only extreme Republicans having an unfavorable opinion. I guess I was failing to take into account that the kind of people who follow polls with so much dedication to have heard of Silver are almost all committed partisans.
If you were being polled about an unfamiliar plan, would you more likely think that a) the pollster was asking you about a fictional plan, or b) that the pollster was doing a genuine survey, and that you just hadn’t heard about that plan yet? Granted, forming an opinion about something in the absence of any knowledge, just because someone asked you for your opinion, is another matter entirely.
This might be a distinction without a difference. The trick was to get people to think they knew about some topic X well enough to profess an opinion on it, even though in fact they didn’t know the first thing about X. Making sure that X doesn’t exist is just a cheap way to implement this trick.
I would think b), and say that.
Isn’t it damning either way, and this dilemma the point of the setup?
Depending on the phrasing and any specifics of the plan presented to me, I might conclude that it was not only fictional but deliberate FUD; that sort of misdirection’s not unheard of. If I were given nothing but a label, though, I’d likely assume B.
The actual question was “Do you support or oppose the Panetta-Burns plan?” (The previous question was ”… the Bowles-Simpson plan?”) So you could infer that the two were related, and possibly partisan/opposing plans, but not much more than that.
Thanks for linking to the full results, very interesting.
I was surprised at first glance by:
both because I assumed more people had heard of him (which shows, I guess, I live in a bubble and don’t correct enough for it), and because I had assumed a more favorable score, with perhaps only extreme Republicans having an unfavorable opinion. I guess I was failing to take into account that the kind of people who follow polls with so much dedication to have heard of Silver are almost all committed partisans.
Nitpick: ‘not sure’ isn’t the same as ‘haven’t heard of him’. There are lots of things I know about that I don’t have an opinion on.