Letters Remain

Tag: prediction

  • Four Steps to Better Predictions

    Following his work on geopolitical forecasting, Philip Tetlock co-founded The Good Judgement Project, along with decision scientist Barbara Mellers and UPenn colleague Don Moore. Their further research identified four key steps to improving forecast accuracy, shared on the (now archived) ‘Science’ section of the project’s site. These steps: And don’t forget the ten commandments of…

  • Hedgehogs, Foxes, and Prediction

    In reviewing Philip Tetlock’s Expert Political Judgment upon its release in 2005, The New Yorker of course discussed the main finding that expert judgements are not much better than those of lay forecasters. Another key focus of the review was Isaiah Berlinā€™s The Hedgehog and the Fox, a metaphor drawn from Archilochus sometime in the…

  • The Two Fundamental Truths of Prediction

    There are two fundamental truths of prediction: (i) there exists a “prediction horizon” where predictions beyond this point are inherently inaccurate; and (ii) experts are generally just bad at predicting. On that first point: our ability to predict is limited by the nature of complex systems. Weather forecasts, for example, are quite accurate a day…

  • Prediction Markets for the Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, and More

    Each year I get caught up in the big film and television awards, trying to watch as many as possible and speculating on the various winners. I just discovered Gold Derby, a fun site for following and predicting the Hollywood ‘races’ yourself. Gold Derby takes predictions on everything from the Oscars to RuPaul’s Drag Race,…

  • Predicting Our Behaviour

    Other people are far superior than us at predicting our behaviour as their predictions are based primarily on observation and are not tainted by our psychological narrative. After reading Timothy Wilson’sĀ Strangers to Ourselves, Nick Southgate–faculty member at London’s The School of Life–discusses this idea thatĀ our friends and acquaintances are better than us at predicting our…

  • Computing and the Climate

    In what appears to be a bit of an advertisement for climateprediction.net–a distributed computing project to test the accuracy of various computer models of climate change–The Economist looks at the impact of computing on the environment; specifically carbon dioxide emissions. According to a report published by the Climate Group, a think-tank based in London, computers,…

  • The Point of Economists

    Following Queen Elizabeth’s question to the economistsā€”Why did no one see the crisis coming?ā€”the Financial Times goes one further asking, What is the point of economists? If the economics profession could not warn the public about the credit crunch and the recession, what is the profession’s raison d’etre? Did this reflect, as some claim, that…

  • Weather Forecasts and Economic Development

    The economic impact of meteorological forecasts is wide-ranging and, sometimes, unexpected. A few of these influences are described briefly before this (tongue-in-cheek, yet still somewhat logical) piece of advice is offered to developing countries: A study from the mid-1990s [ā€¦] concluded that every dollar invested in weather forecasting services would save $10 in economic losses.…