However – and this point is one you rarely hear in commentary about the book – the experts outperform unsophisticated forecasters (a role filled by Berkeley undergrads), whose performance is truly woeful.
Read the entire book review.
Herbert Stein wrote a memoir in which he summarized what he had learned is that economists do not know very much, but non-economists know even less.
The challenge is to get people to admit what they do not know. A non-economist who is quite ignorant is only dangerous if he or she tries to engineer the economy. Most economists, believing that they can engineer the economy, are dangerous.
More and more it seems we are simply doomed to choose between the incoherent manias of the masses and incompetence of dilettantes on the one hand, or the hubristic fiascoes of experts and abuses of the elites on the other.
Have a nice day.
But perhaps less so than those who believe they must not do so.
I developed a better understanding of the issue upon reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s assertion that “Some fields don’t have experts.”
It’s in _The Black Swan_. IDK where. Maybe around p. 200 somewhere.
While we are on Tetlock–have we ever discussed Meehl? I learned of him from reading _Thinking, Fast and Slow_. Meehl showed thatt in many fields a human clinician can’t predict as well as a statistically derived estimate.
The discussion in _Thinking, Fast and slow_ is worth reading.
.
According to Wikipedia, the book reference is here:
Paul E. Meehl (new edition 2013) _Clinical versus Statistical Prediction_. Echo Point Books & Media