Don't Be an Expert, Be a Fox

In Nicholas Kristof's recent op-ed in the Gray Lady, Learning How to Think, Kristof discusses how talking heads are always wrong in their predictions.

"Experts turn out to be a stunningly poor source of expertise."

"The expert on experts is Philip Tetlock, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His 2005 book, “Expert Political Judgment,” is based on two decades of tracking some 82,000 predictions by 284 experts. The experts’ forecasts were tracked both on the subjects of their specialties and on subjects that they knew little about.The result? The predictions of experts were, on average, only a tiny bit better than random guesses — the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board."

"The only consistent predictor was fame — and it was an inverse relationship. The more famous experts did worse than unknown ones." Producers in the ad-supported media prefer experts who provide "strong, coherent points of view, who saw things in blacks and whites. People who shouted."

The article describes rodents outfoxing Yale undergrads, hedgehogs vs. foxes, and clinical psychologists and their secretaries.

Jon Stewart's going to have a field day with this.