Gaddis begins here by referencing the work of American political psychologist Phillip E. Tetlock*, who collected hundreds of predictions by experts in government, academia, think-tanks and other institutions in the 80s and found that WHO these experts were, their status, professional background and so on, made no difference to their judgment.
Nor did the nature of their fundamental biases: liberal or conservative, optimist or pessimist, realist or institutionalist. A relative level of accuracy or ‘good judgment’ came almost entirely from the subject’s style of reasoning, especially when self-deprecating.
Those bristling with big ideas and explanations, contemptuous of criticism were, quite simply more often than not, plain wrong.
Tetlock concluded that "self-critical thinkers are better at figuring out the contradictory dynamics of evolving situations, more circumspect about their forecasting prowess, more accurate in recalling mistakes, less prone to rationalise those mistakes, more likely to update their beliefs in a timely fashion...better positioned to affix realistic probabilities in the next round of events”.
The covid pandemic has seen a multitude of different expert opinions jostling for position, and politicians in many countries have deferred to them, perhaps a little too readily, or at least without discriminating against those who are “prisoners of their preconceptions” as Tetlock put it, as opposed to those with a little bit more “sense and sensitivity”, as Gaddis does, while admitting that the better kind of expert tends to be more discursive and struggles to hold an audience or indeed politicians with short attention spans.
* Ironically enough, the very idea that foxes are better forecasters than hedgehogs has a whiff of TED-talk hedgehoginess about it.
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