[extropy-chat] US election prediction markets failure

[Kat Walsh]

On 11/13/06, Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:

> I wonder if it was really a failure to "predict a drastic change" or
> whether it was a problem with an ill-posed question.  The question
> that Orlowski used in his article was posed as something like "GOP
> retains Senate."   That's a binary proposition and one that we
> understand now (and I believe we understood before the election) to
> have been a very close thing.   I wonder if the question had been
> posed as "Number of Seats lost by GOP"  if the idea market would have
> given a more accurate result.
[snip]
> Off topically, I would be intrinsically distrustful of Orlowski's
> articles, as it has been shown that his intellectual integrity will
> often take 2nd place to his desire to write sensationalist stories.

I concur with this. Most articles Orlowski's written about subjects I
have some knowledge of, I've found to be irresponsible journalism at
best and plain trolling at worst. (If he's the most intellectually
formidable critic something has, it's probably not too bad an idea.)

Considering the actual majority came down to the wire (she says, from
Northern Virginia, where a chunk of the action was) I'd say the idea
markets didn't do too badly; I'd be shocked if they never failed. The
article's failure to consider the actual question asked -- when a
journalist should be well aware of the effect of wording -- is either
laziness or intellectual dishonesty.

-Kat
briefly delurking again

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