[Link] How to see into the future (Financial Times)

fortyeridania

How to see into the future, by Tim Harford

The article may be gated. (I have a subscription through my school.)

It is mainly about two things: the differing approaches to forecasting taken by Irving Fisher, John Maynard Keynes, and Roger Babson; and Philip Tetlock's Good Judgment Project.

Key paragraph:

So what is the secret of looking into the future? Initial results from the Good Judgment Project suggest the following approaches. First, some basic training in probabilistic reasoning helps to produce better forecasts. Second, teams of good forecasters produce better results than good forecasters working alone. Third, actively open-minded people prosper as forecasters.

But the Good Judgment Project also hints at why so many experts are such terrible forecasters. It’s not so much that they lack training, teamwork and open-mindedness – although some of these qualities are in shorter supply than others. It’s that most forecasters aren’t actually seriously and single-mindedly trying to see into the future. If they were, they’d keep score and try to improve their predictions based on past errors. They don’t.

How to see into the future, by Tim Harford

The article may be gated. (I have a subscription through my school.)

It is mainly about two things: the differing approaches to forecasting taken by Irving Fisher, John Maynard Keynes, and Roger Babson; and Philip Tetlock's Good Judgment Project.

Key paragraph:

So what is the secret of looking into the future? Initial results from the Good Judgment Project suggest the following approaches. First, some basic training in probabilistic reasoning helps to produce better forecasts. Second, teams of good forecasters produce better results than good forecasters working alone. Third, actively open-minded people prosper as forecasters.

But the Good Judgment Project also hints at why so many experts are such terrible forecasters. It’s not so much that they lack training, teamwork and open-mindedness – although some of these qualities are in shorter supply than others. It’s that most forecasters aren’t actually seriously and single-mindedly trying to see into the future. If they were, they’d keep score and try to improve their predictions based on past errors. They don’t.

Would an "expert" want to keep data that could potentially refute his claim to expertise?

If there would be a general belief that experts who don't are bad at forecasting he might keep data to signal that he follows best practices.

It's just a better of spreading the knowledge that people who don't keep score don't make good predictions.

people who don't keep score don't make good predictions.

Entirely true.

If there would be a general belief...

General beliefs are generally ignorant nonsense, particularly with regard to mathematical abstractions on aggregates that people have no concrete experience dealing with themselves.

Fun fact from Ian Hacking, via Wikipedia:

The word Probability derives from the Latin probabilitas, which can also mean probity, a measure of the authority of a witness in a legal case in Europe, and often correlated with the witness's nobility. In a sense, this d

... (read more)

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[Link] How to see into the future (Financial Times)

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[Link] How to see into the future (Financial Times)

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