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The Art and Science of Prediction
by Philip E. Tetlock
Book Reviewed by:Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters.
As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight, and Tetlock has spent the past decade trying to figure out why. What makes some people so good? And can this talent be taught?
In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary people—including a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancer—who set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They've beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They've even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are "superforecasters."
In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn't require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course.
Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the future—whether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily life—and is destined to become a modern classic.
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An Optimistic Skeptic
We are all forecasters. When we think about changing jobs, getting married, buying a home, making an investment, launching a product, or retiring, we decide based on how we expect the future will unfold. These expectations are forecasts. Often we do our own forecasting. But when big events happen--markets crash, wars loom, leaders tremble--we turn to the experts, those in the know. We look to people like Tom Friedman.
If you are a White House staffer, you might find him in the Oval Office with the president of the United States, talking about the Middle East. If you are a Fortune 500 CEO, you might spot him in Davos, chatting in the lounge with hedge fund billionaires and Saudi princes. And if you don't frequent the White House or swanky Swiss hotels, you can read his New York Times columns and bestselling books that tell you what's happening now, why, and what will come next.1 Millions do.
Like Tom Friedman, Bill Flack forecasts global events. But there is a lot ...
One of the book's biggest strengths is the combination of the authors' expertise. Both have written previously about decision-making and about the shortfalls of human thought... Tetlock dives into the quantitative science behind forecasting and how individuals and groups can improve their prediction skills. After all, he writes, "it is one thing to recognize the limits on predictability, and quite another to dismiss all prediction as an exercise in futility." And Gardner turns all of Tetlock's research and analysis into clear, approachable explanations.....continued
Full Review
(883 words)
(Reviewed by Margaret Belford).
Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow
Philip Tetlock is the world expert on a vital subject. Superforecasting is the wonderful story of how he and his research team got ordinary people to beat experts in a very serious game. It is also a manual for thinking clearly in an uncertain world. Read it.
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 ...
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