Must-Read: Nate Silver: The Polls Were Bad in Greece. The Conventional Wisdom Was Worse

Must-Read: Nate Silver: The Polls Were Bad in Greece. The Conventional Wisdom Was Worse: “So… the pundits are so bad that you should literally bet against whatever they say?…

…Even I wouldn’t go that far. I’m happy to mostly ignore them instead. The problem, though, is that because of [pollster] herding, it’s become harder to get what I really want–an undiluted sample of public opinion. Instead, there’s sometimes quite a bit of conventional wisdom baked into the polls. Be wary when there’s a seeming consensus among the polls, especially under circumstances that should make for difficult polling. There’s a good chance the polling will be wrong–but in the opposite direction of what most people are expecting.