I predict your prediction is wrong

So it’s August and oil has soared to yet another record high. Expect it to hit $200 a barrel soon.

Or at least, that was what experts told us a couple of months ago. Then the price dropped. And dropped some more.

Huh. Who predicted that?


Well, a couple of months ago I wrote that “the experts have been wrong before. They may be wrong again.” So you could say I predicted it, although what I really predicted was that the predictions could be wrong. And that’s about the safest prediction anyone can make.

We are bad at predictions. All of us. Laypeople are clueless, not surprisingly. But experts are no better.

Over the course of 20 years, Philip Tetlock, a University of California psychologist, followed the prognostications of esteemed political scientists, economists, journalists and others whose work involved “commenting or offering advice on political or economic trends.” In all, Tetlock’s experts made 82,361 predictions. They were appallingly inaccurate. Tetlock discovered a flipped coin would have done better.

Ottawa Citizen