There’s a better counterargument than that in Tetlock—one of the data points he collected was from a group of university undergraduates, and they did worse than the worst experts, worse than blind chance. Thinking for yourself is the worst option Tetlock considered.
Thinking for yourself is the worst option Tetlock considered.
Worse for making predictions, I suppose. But if people never think for themselves, we are never going to have any new ideas. Statistical extrapolation may be great for prediction, but it is poor for originality. So we value thinking for oneself. But the hit-rate is terrtlble. We have to put up with huge amounts of crap to get the gems. Most Ideas are Wrong, as I like to say when people tell me I’m being “too critical”.
Oh, it’s less general than that—it’s worse for political forecasting specifically. Other kinds of prediction (e.g. will this box fit under this table?), thinking for yourself is often one of the better options.
But, you know, political forecasting is one of the things we often care about. So knowing rules of thumb like “trust the experts, but not very much” is quite helpful.
There’s a better counterargument than that in Tetlock—one of the data points he collected was from a group of university undergraduates, and they did worse than the worst experts, worse than blind chance. Thinking for yourself is the worst option Tetlock considered.
Thinking for yourself is the worst option Tetlock considered.
Worse for making predictions, I suppose. But if people never think for themselves, we are never going to have any new ideas. Statistical extrapolation may be great for prediction, but it is poor for originality. So we value thinking for oneself. But the hit-rate is terrtlble. We have to put up with huge amounts of crap to get the gems. Most Ideas are Wrong, as I like to say when people tell me I’m being “too critical”.
Oh, it’s less general than that—it’s worse for political forecasting specifically. Other kinds of prediction (e.g. will this box fit under this table?), thinking for yourself is often one of the better options.
But, you know, political forecasting is one of the things we often care about. So knowing rules of thumb like “trust the experts, but not very much” is quite helpful.