Friday, January 06, 2006

I'll Go With the Chimp

The Wall Street Journal reviewed "Expert Political Judgment" by Philip Tetlock and found that "the prognostications of political pundits are about as accurate as a chimp throwing darts."

Said the Journal:
From 1987 to 2003, Prof. Tetlock coaxed 284 political experts of all stripes -- academics, journalists and think-tankers from across the political spectrum -- to make specific, verifiable forecasts. He looked at more than 27,000 predictions in all . . . What he found is that people with expertise in explaining events that have happened aren't very successful at predicting what will happen.

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