Federico Reyes Heroles
All human inventions are fallible. Even those that receive the most attention. Francis Bacon asserted that knowledge arises more readily from error than from confusion. The Hindenburg collapsed. The Titanic sank. For example, no matter how much research is done, no matter how much testing is done, drugs often have “side” consequences and also some unintended ones. Boeing is experiencing difficult days. Its 737 MAX model has had several incidents. What can we say about the social sciences if that happens in branches with highly advanced technologies and instruments of the highest precision?
In the first half of 2023, all predictions pointed to a recession in the USA. Some said it would be severe, and others would be mild. And what happened? There was no recession. In the social sciences, there are many variables, so precision is not easy. However, because of the failed forecast for 2023, we will not discard economic science. We will not conclude that airplanes do not fly because of the Boeing incidents. Demoscopy is a young science. It is obligatory to talk about George Gallup, who developed this new discipline at the beginning of the last century. The ability to process large amounts of information and the fine methodological observations allow us to refer to polls with narrow error margins. However, as in aviation, “incidents” do occur that deserve to be observed. Bacon again. COVID-19 prevented face-to-face interviews. Telephone or robotic surveys took on a new lease of life. At first, there was distrust, but again, by observing rigorously and correcting errors, they have shown that they can be accurate.
We have been observing very different results from serious pollsters in Mexico for some years. The differentials are sometimes enormous. The answer is not to blame the dummy pollsters. Those are simply an organized deception, like crime. I am referring to pollsters with a long tradition of seriousness and professionalism. But the contradictions among them do not disappear. Something strange is going on. In 1982, a German political scientist and philosopher – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann – wrote a controversial text: The Spiral of Silence. The author demonstrated, with multiple examples and in very different international contexts, the devastating role of fear, of fears, in societies. When these are installed in societies, the prognosis is clear: the rejection to surveys increases, and the capacity for success falls.
For more than five years, fear in Mexico has been conquering the conscience of many Mexicans. It has very concrete origins: the violence -for example- that embraces almost the entire territory. But fear has also been cultivated from the highest tribune of power: threats, accusations, disqualifications, improper use of official information. The list is endless, from that of the tiger that can only be controlled by one person to the interference in the media. That is why the Este País Foundation, with the support of Data OPM, decided to elaborate a survey whose primary focus is to measure how flawed the pre-election environment is, which could explain the reasons for many discrepancies. Based on Noelle-Neumann’s text, methodologies have been developed that allow us to know the genuine opinion of citizens beyond fear. The results will be released soon.
For the time being, it is worth reflecting on how comfortable we feel talking about politics with friends, at work, and in the family. How much are we willing to a verbal confrontation? To what extent do we flee from these situations? To what extent are we already prisoners of the Mexican spiral of silence?
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