Rebutting Counterarguments in Nonfiction

Rebutting Counterarguments in Nonfiction

This article relates to Superforecasting

Throughout Superforecasting, Tetlock and Gardner seem to be aware they are fighting an uphill battle against skepticism. On one end of the spectrum, you have pundits committed to their ability to guess the future on intuition alone. On the other, you have an anti-intellectual rejection of the notion that experts can know anything at all. The authors make a convincing case for the "murky middle," as they call it, by anticipating and seriously considering the arguments on both sides.

Counterargument is a key feature of persuasive rhetoric. It may seem counterintuitive to bring up arguments against your claim while simultaneously trying to make a case for it; however, considering the opposing point of view and answering it can be a way of winning over skeptics, testing the merits of your idea, and making people feel heard. Tetlock, a scientist, and Gardner, a journalist, are not only used to hearing opposing arguments, but actively seek them out as a way to improve their own work. That open-mindedness makes for a good forecaster, they tell the reader, but it also makes for a convincing book.

When the authors advocate for the use of quantitative scores when evaluating forecasts, for example, they acknowledge the flaws in their system. However, Tetlock says, "while I can't claim my scoring system is perfect, it is a big improvement on judging a forecaster by the criteria used nowadays—titles, confidence, skill at spinning a story, number of books sold, CNN appearances, and time spent at Davos." In this way, they argue, scoring forecasts can be compared to scoring credit. Are credit scores a perfect system? No. Are credit scores a vast improvement over the previous system of individual bank tellers making judgement calls on their customers, which may be informed by all manner of personal biases? Absolutely. I might doubt that a Brier score can totally tell me how accurate any given forecast is—but I have to agree that it's an improvement on the current system. By anticipating my objection, and addressing it with a concrete example, Tetlock and Gardner strengthen their case.

In some cases, the counterargument is an elephant in the room that has to be acknowledged; without the discussion, your credibility is lost. In a section on military leadership, Tetlock and Gardner dive into the German military's use of Auftragstaktik (a method of military command and delegation), specifically in the Nazi-era Wehrmacht. When a reader sees that, their first reaction is probably not a positive one. I was immediately taken aback by their seeming endorsement of a military philosophy used to commit unspeakable horrors. Had Tetlock and Gardner not addressed that dissonance, it would have damaged their credibility. However, Tetlock and Gardner anticipate that thought. "Did I have to choose the Wehrmacht? Other organizations illustrate how thinking like a superforecaster can improve leader performance. So why make a point with an army that served the evilest cause in modern history?" They acknowledge how difficult it is to break the association between morality and competence; they then, however, relay stories of forecasters in their study that made inaccurate forecasts under the influence of that association. Their approval or disapproval biased their otherwise sound judgement. Addressing that link, then, is crucial to improving your forecasting and analysis skills. The authors write:

"Coping with dissonance is hard… It requires teasing apart our feelings about the Nazi regime from our factual judgements about the Wehrmacht's organizational resilience – and to see the Wehrmacht as both a horrific organization that deserved to be destroyed and an effective organization with lessons to teach us… So why use the Wehrmacht as an illustration even though it makes us squirm? Precisely because it makes us squirm."

By acknowledging that difficulty and addressing it, rather than letting that doubt fester in the reader's mind, Tetlock and Gardner make a stronger, more persuasive argument than they otherwise would have.

Keeping a sharp eye out for counterarguments, as a key sign of whether an author is considering other points of view in their writing, is the kind of critical analysis that makes one a stronger writer, reader, and of course, superforecaster.

Image of a painting depicting a lecture from a knight academy from Wikimedia Commons.

Filed under Books and Authors

This article relates to Superforecasting. It first ran in the January 28, 2026 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.