"Expert" Prediction


Abstract:
Specialists are especially good at making mistakes.

Body:
In the 1970s Kahneman and Tversky showed that humans are not Bayesians. Yet we treat some humans we call "experts" as if they were well calibrated prediction makers. Political pundits, in particular, make their livings predicting the future of world events, so we might expect them to be accurate and precise. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Philip Tetlock found that experts actually are less accurate and precise than average people.

Thanks to Emil for finding this link, showing that knowledge is not a sufficient condition for rationality.

Posted: Thu - July 13, 2006 at 03:21 PM         |    

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