[extropy-chat] silent night

[Robin Hanson]

[Back from vacation, I can continue our conversation.  RH]

On 12/23/2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>>Did you actually go look at the IEM web site and the many papers they
>>have there?  If so, you might have found:
>>http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/archive/forecasting.pdf
>
>This paper claims that existing evidence only shows the Iowa markets
>predicting elections 24 hours before the election.  They claim that no
>evidence has been seen or analysis performed on longer-term
>predictions.

I don't think you actually read the paper.  Try Table 3, "all years"
column, first section.  It shows that our of 596 comparisons, their
market beat polls 451 times.  This data is *not* just 24 hours ahead.

>Given such an admission, I had (have?) high hopes that this new paper
>would give such evidence.  However, it has been in "working draft"
>stage for two and a half years, and was never actually completed,
>peer-reviewed and finally published.  If tis paper is providing the
>proof, why has it never been finished?

You also seem to have no idea how academic publishing works.  I'm sure
they have been submitting the paper places and it has so far been
rejected.  That's how things go in academia.  Most of us have perfectly
good papers that have been rejected for several years.

>The data presented in this paper shows very small sample sizes and very
>large variability with no consistency between elections.  ...

596 is small?  The columns of that table describe different elections,
with relatively consistent results IMO.

>>Did you look at any of the papers mentioning such claims and look up
>>their citations?
>>For example, re an extropian angle you might have found:
>>http://hanson.gmu.edu/moretrue.pdf
>
>Nice paper *about* predictions, but little evidence of historical
>success or specific methods.

I said to look at the papers *cited* by that paper.  It is not my job
to go look up every relevant item, and spoon feed you a URL or a quote,
and then explain them all via long emails.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323