Thanks! I think I now see the root of the confusion. These are two closely related but different tasks:
predicting the outcome of an event
estimating the probability of the outcome
In your example, the tasks could be completed as follows:
“the next roll will be a 6” (i.e I know it because the die is unfair)
“the probability of 6 is about 16.67%” (i.e I can correctly calculate it because the die is fair)
If one is trying to predict the future, one could fail either (or both) of the tasks.
In the situation there people were trying to predict if Russia invades Ukraine, some of them got the probability right, but failed to predict the actual outcome. And the aforementioned pundits failed both tasks (in my opinion), because for a well-informed person it was already clear that Russia will invade with the probability much higher than 40%.
Thanks! I think I now see the root of the confusion. These are two closely related but different tasks:
predicting the outcome of an event
estimating the probability of the outcome
In your example, the tasks could be completed as follows:
“the next roll will be a 6” (i.e I know it because the die is unfair)
“the probability of 6 is about 16.67%” (i.e I can correctly calculate it because the die is fair)
If one is trying to predict the future, one could fail either (or both) of the tasks.
In the situation there people were trying to predict if Russia invades Ukraine, some of them got the probability right, but failed to predict the actual outcome. And the aforementioned pundits failed both tasks (in my opinion), because for a well-informed person it was already clear that Russia will invade with the probability much higher than 40%.